LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf ,_.4.Ha 

UNITED STATES OF AMEEIOA. 



~> 1887 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 

AND 

RUSSIAN DISSENT 

COMPRISING 

ORTHODOXY, DISSENT, AND ERRATIC SECTS 



BY / 

ALBERT F. HEARD 

FORMERLY CONSUL-GENERAL FOR RUSSIA AT SIUNGIIAI 




NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1887 



■s>° 



^m 




Copyright, 1887, by Harper & Brothers. 



All rights reserved. 



PREFACE. 



In the following pages I have given a consecutive ac- 
count of the Orthodox Church of Eussia, commencing 
with its origin and history, then investigating its pres- 
ent condition and that of its clergy, tracing the causes 
and consequences of the schism which arose in the seven- 
teenth century, and still continues, and finally examining 
the innumerable sects springing from the schismatic 
movement, or from the inherent devotional character 
of the people. A work of this nature, without any 
pretence of theological erudition, and intended for the 
general reader, does not, so far as I have been able to 
ascertain, exist, and I have endeavored to supply the 
deficiency. I have been compelled to seek information 
from many sources, and a list of the authorities I have 
consulted is appended ; but for a view of the Church and 
the clergy, and of the various sects, as they are at pres- 
ent known, I have followed and borrowed freely from 
the interesting and able articles of M. Anatole Leroy- 
Beaulieu, in the Bevue des Deux Mondes. This distin- 
guished writer has treated, in a thoroughly philosophic 
spirit, the complex institutions of Eussia ; and, if I may 
judge by my own experience, derived from a long resi- 
dence among Eussians, and by the testimony of Eussians 



iv PREFACE. 

of eminence, he is entitled to rank highest among for- 
eign authorities on the subject. 

I speak advisedly above of the present state of infor- 
mation upon the religious question, especially as regards 
the masses of the people, among whom, chiefly, devotional 
feeling and sectarianism flourish. They are frequently 
unable to give intelligible explanations of their religious 
beliefs, even when willing to do so ; and generally, with 
Asiatic dislike of strangers, or with suspicious distrust 
of their own superiors, generated by centuries of serf- 
dom, they evade every attempt at inquiry. Moreover, 
it is only in recent years that the internal condition of 
the Eussian Empire has received from Eussians them- 
selves the investigation and study which its importance 
demands, and it may yet be long before it can be safely 
averred that the religious question, any more than others 
of a political nature, is fully understood and appreciated. 

Loyalty to the Tsar, and aptitude for organization, are 
universal among the people, but religious devotion is 
their strongest and most general characteristic; in no 
country is it so universally and so intimately interwoven 
in the daily life of every individual. \Vars against the 
infidel Turk excite the same enthusiasm as the crusades 
of the Middle Ages ; and the intensity of this feeling, 
together with the pious credulity of the people, are a 
prodigious power in the hands of the government, that 
may be easily directed in furtherance of political ends. 

" It is for Christ that we are to fight," a peasant was 
heard to say to a fellow-conscript in 1S77. " He suffered 
on the cross for us, and it is but right that we should 
suffer, in our turn, for Him." 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L 

The Separation of the Churches of the East and the West; the Causes, 
Political and Ecclesiastical. — Differences hetween the Churches, 
External and Internal Page 1 

CHAPTER IL 

Introduction of Christianity into Russia . 12 

CHAPTER III. 

The Russian Church from its Establishment to its Independence of 
Constantinople. — The Unia and the Orthodox Church in Poland ; 
Separation of the Latter from the Church in Russia 22 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Church in the Fifteenth Centmy.— Effect of Tatar Occupation. — 
Liberation of Russia from the Tatars. — Attempted Reforms in the 
Church. — The Orthodox Church in Poland. — Establishment of the 
Patriarchate in Russia 39 

CHAPTER V. 

Boris Godounov. — The Church in Poland. — Peter Mogila. — Liberation 
of Russia from the Poles. — Philaret. — Alexis. — Nikon and his Re- 
forms. — Dissent 05 

CHAPTER VI. 

Reunion of the Polish to the Russian Church. — Dissent. — Peter the 
Great and his Successors. — Substitution of the Holy Synod for the 
Patriarchate. — Absorption of the Unia by the Russian Church. — Re- 
forms Ill 



yi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Influence of the Religious Element ; its Development. — National 
Character of the Church ; its Isolation. — Differences from Catholic 
and Protestant Churches. — Popes. — Development of Church and 
State in Russia.— Church Government Page 137 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Clergy, Black and White. — Monasticism and Monasteries. — Par- 
ish Priests 160 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Raskol. — Early Heresies.— Attempted Reforms in Church.— Nikon. 
— Peter the Great. — The Popovtsi and the Bezpopovtsi. — Political 
Aspect of the Raskol 179 

CHAPTER X. 

The Raskol, Socially and Politically.— Praobrajenski and Rogojski.— 
Organization of Popovtsism and Bezpopovtsism. — Attempts at Rec- 
onciliation with the Church. — The Edinovertsi. — Modification of the 
Raskol ; its Extreme Sects 208 

CHAPTER XI. 

Sects not belonging to the Raskol. — Mystical and Rationalistic Sects. 
— Erratic Sects. — Recent Sects. — Vitality of Sectarian Spirit. — Atti- 
tude of Government towards Dissent 250 

Index 299 



LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED. 



Barry, II Russia in 1870. London, 1871. 

Burnet, G History of His Own Times. London, 1809. 

_ T ( History of Catherine II., Empress of Russia. 

Castera, J ■> T , H OAA 

( London, 1800. 

Account of Russian Discoveries, etc. Lon- 



Coxc ' W { don, 1803. 

Custine, A., Marquis de. . .La Russie en 1839. Bruxelles, 18-13. 

Delaveau, II In La Revue des Deux Mondes. Paris, 1858. 

Dixon, W. II Free Russia. New York, 1870. 

Floury, C, et Fabre, J. C. .llistoire Ecclesiastique. Paris, 1722-1738. 
Fletcher, Giles, and \ ( A Treatise on the Russian Commonwealth. 



1588. 

Horsey, Sir Jerome J I Travels of. 1591. 

Two books in one, entitled "Russia at 

the Close of the XVI. Century," edited 

by E. A. Bond for the Hakluyt Society. 

London, 1856. 

Foy de la Neufville An Account of Muscovy as it was in 1689. 

Freeman, E. A In Edinburgh Review, vol. cvii. 

. _ ,, _ ( The Russian Clergy, translated by C. du G. 

Gagarin, Father J ] , l . T OJ , „_„_ J 

° ( Makepeace. London, 1872. 

„„. ,, ( The History of the Decline and Fall of the 

Gibbon, E -J _, _r . T , _.„ 

( Roman Empire. London, 1797. 

Gurowski, A. G. de Russia as it is. New York, 1854. 

Hapgood, LP The Epic Songs of Russia. New York, 1886. 

Hare, A. J. C Studies in Russia. London, 1885. 

Hakluyt, R Collection of Voyages. London, 1809-1812. 

( The Russian Empire, translated by R. Fade. 

Haxthausen, A. von j T , iaKa 

( London, 18o6. 

r Histoire de L'Empire de Russie traduite 
Karamsin, N. M •] par M. M. St, Thomas et Jauffret. Paris, 

( 1819-1826. 
Kelly, W. K History of Russia. London, 1854. 



Vlll 



LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED. 



Kino* 1 C $ ^ e ^* tes anc * Ceremonies of the Greek 

( Church in Russia. London, 1772. 

Kohl, J. G .*. .Russia and the Russians. London, 1842. 

Lea H C i Studies in Church History. Philadelphia, 

' ( 1869. 

t po-pr T i CyriHe et Methode. Etude sur la Conversion 

° ' " " ( des Slaves. Paris, 1868. 

T -d v a {In La Revue des Deux Mondes. Paris, 1873- 

Leroy-Beauheu, A -j lgg() 

Levesque, P. C Histoire de la Russie. Paris, 1812. 

, r . /T > , . , . ( Travels Written hy Paul of Aleppo, trans- 

Macanus (Patriarch) < , _ , _-,,,,. T . 

; ( lated by F. C. Balfour. London, 1829. 

Merimee, P Les Faux Demetrius. Paris, 1853. 

, r . , T . T ( Louis XL et Charles le Temeraire. Paris, 

Michetet, J. ■> 

( 1854. 

"NT cr'i pt ■ f Exposition of the Orthodox Faith of the 

( Eastern Church. Published about 1750. 

, r , . TT ( Ecclesiastical History, translated by A. Mac- 

Mosheim, J. L ] _; _ _ . J' J 

( laire. London, 1774. 

, r ., A ¥ j History of the Church of Russia, translated 

jyiouraviet, A. JN ( by R w Blackmore. Oxford, 1842. 

AT . r ( History of the Holy Eastern Church. Lon- 

* eale ' J ' M 1 don, 1850-1857. 

( General History of the Christian Religion 
Neander, A < and the Church, translated by J. W. Tor- 

' rey. London, 1853. 
^ T . (La Chronique de, traduite par L. Paris. 

* eSt ° r I Paris, 1834. 

Noble, E The Russian Revolt. Boston, 1885. 

r The Patriarch and the Tsar; the Replies of 
Palmer, W \ Nikon translated by W. Palmer. Lon- 

( don, 1871. 
Dissertations on the Orthodox or Eastern 
Communions. London, 1853. 

j The Fall of Constantinople. New York, 
lcarS,±i { 1886. 

( Present State of the Greek Church in Russia, 
Platon, L •] translated by R. Pinkcrton. New York, 

( 1815. 

" " Histoire de L'Eglise Russe. 

Ralston, "W. R. S Songs of the Russian People. London, 1872. 

Rambaud, A Histoire de la Russie. Paris, 1878. 



LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED. i x 

( Anonyme. Essai sur les Sectes religicuses 

Raskol > Le { en Russie. Paris, 1878. 

j Sketches of the Kites and Ceremonies of the 

Romanof, II. C \ Greco-Russian Church. London, 1868. 

Schnitzler, J. II Les Institutions de la Russie. Paris, 1856. 

j Secret History of the Court of Russia. Lon- 

( don, 1847. 

_ ( Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia. New 

Schuyler, E ( York, 1884. 

, „ ( Lectures on the History of the Eastern 

&tanle > r ' A - P I Church. London, 1801. 

Stepniak (Pseudonym). . . .Russia under the Tsars. Xew York, 1885. 
•' ... .The Russian Storm-Cloud. London, 1886. 
Btrahl, P., and j ( Geschichte des Russischen Staates. Ham- 
Herman, E. ) I burg, 1832-1866. 

Ternaux-Compans Archives des Voyages, vol. ii. Paris, 1840-41. 

( Vicissitudes de L'Eglise Catholique des 

Theiuer, A < Deux Rites en Pologne et en Russie. 

( Paris, 1843. 

Tooke, W History of Russia. London, 1800. 

Vogue, E. M. de In La Revue des Deux Mondes. Paris, 1879. 

Voltaire CKuvres et Correspondence. 1785. 

Waddington, G History of the Church. London, 1831-1833. 

u ( Condition and Prospects of the Greek 
' ' ( Church. London, 1854. 
Wallace, D. McK Russia. London, 1877. 



THE 

RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Separation of the Churches of the East and the West; its Causes, 
Political and Ecclesiastical. — Differences between the Churches, 
External and Internal. 

The immediate causes of the great schism between 
the churches of the East and the West, in a.d. 1054, 
were ecclesiastical in their nature, but political events 
had material influence in preparing the way for the 
separation. 

The partition of the world, in a.d. 395, between IIo- 
norius and Arcadius, aroused diverse and conflicting in- 
terests which had slumbered while the empire was united. 

The transfer of the capital from Rome to Ravenna, 
the conquest of the West by the barbarians, and its final 
severance from the East, resulted in the rise of papacy 
to temporal as well as spiritual power. It obtained 
ascendancy over half the world, and claimed jurisdiction 
over the whole. 

The foundation of Constantinople, the dismemberment 
of the empire, and the complete separation, in a political 
sense, of the East from the West, exalted the pride of the 
patriarch, and raised his see to an equality with that of 
Rome. He as indignantly resented the pope's preten- 
sions to supremacy as they were vehemently asserted. 
1 



2 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

During these centuries of incessant struggle great 
changes supervened in the character and constitution of 
the two Churches. 

In the West the theocratic element became predom- 
inant ; the Church, left to its own resources, learned to 
suffice for itself. It gave, instead of asking, protection, 
grasped the sceptre of absent emperors, and successfully 
established its dominion over kings and princes. 

In the East the Church, shielded from harm by the 
State, remained subservient to civil authority, rarely in- 
terfered in political affairs, and was content with its own 
spiritual jurisdiction. 

The persistent pretensions of Eome, the constant an- 
tagonism, the frequent wars, the incessant conflicts to 
which they gave rise, were accompanied by differences 
of dogma and of discipline. These served to further em- 
bitter the struggle, to render the contest more implaca- 
ble, and to make reconciliation or harmony impossible. 

Disputes arose in the second and third centuries as to 
the date and celebration of Easter. The heresy of Arius, 
at first, and for a time, accepted in the East, but con- 
demned in the West, followed in the fourth century. 
In the seventh, discussion as to the double or single nat- 
ure of Christ convulsed the Christian world. The mono- 
theletian patriarchs and the dyotheletian popes mutually 
anathematized each other, until unity was restored by 
the Sixth (Ecumenical Council, a.d. 680 to 691. Then 
came the great controversy on the subject of image Avor- 
ship, which raged with intense virulence for a century 
and a half. 

Meanwhile another grave subject of dispute arose, 
which still constitutes the essential dogmatical differ- 
ence between the Churches. The doctrine of the Double 
Procession of the Holy Ghost originated in Spain during 



the fifth century. From Spain it spread into France, 
was accepted by Charlemagne and the Council of Aix-la- 
Chapelle in a.d. 809, and finally, approved at Rome, be- 
came an obligatory article of belief throughout the AVest. 
The Greek Church obstinately adhered to the old faith 
and letter of the creed. It absolutely rejected the Double 
Procession, and both parties appealed to the records of 
oecumenical councils. The interpolation of the words 
"filio-que," in the creed established by the Council of 
Constantinople in a.d. 3S1, was detected. Nevertheless 
the Latin Church maintained the dogma, while the Greek 
persisted in denying it. 

The seventh general council, convened at Xicoea in 
a.d. 78 T, is, in the estimation of the Eastern Church, the 
last oecumenical council. It completed, by its decrees, the 
entire body of doctrine of the Universal Church of Christ. 
By it unity was apparently restored, and in outward ap- 
pearance the ecclesiastical fabric was then one and indi- 
visible. The innumerable shades and differences of opin- 
ion within it were indiscriminately distributed through 
the whole mass. Sects and denominations abounded, 
with mutual denunciations and revilings ; but no schism, 
properly so called, arrayed any great geographical divi- 
sion of the world in open religious hostility to the others. 

In the middle of the ninth century the emperor, 
Michael III., deposed the patriarch Ignatius for daring 
to rebuke the licentiousness of the court, and named 
Photius in his stead. The new prelate was a man of 
unimpeachable character, commanding genius, and vast 
ambition. He excelled in theological erudition, but, as 
he was a layman, his appointment was irregular. Igna- 
tius appealed to Nicholas L, Pope of Eome, who was glad 
of the opportunity to assert his right of interference. 
He anathematized Photius, and endeavored to reinstate 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 



Ignatius. Photius, undisturbed, retaliated upon Nicholas 
his sentence of deposition and excommunication, and 
widened the field of controversy by making appeal to 
the whole Christian world. In a circular letter, addressed 
to his brother patriarchs, he formally charged the Eoman 
Church with five distinct heresies, and formulated the 
differences dividing the Churches. He declared : 

That the Komish Church erroneously fasted on the 
Sabbath, or seventh day of the week. 

That in the first week of Lent it wrongfully permitted 
the use of milk and of food prepared from milk. 

That, contrary to Scripture, it prohibited priests from 
marrying, and separated from their wives such as were 
married when they took orders. 

That it uncanonically authorized bishops, only, to 
anoint baptized persons with the Holy Chrism, withhold- 
ing that authority from presbyters. 

That it had sacrilegiously interpolated the words "filio- 
que " in the creed of the Council of Constantinople, and 
held the heretical doctrine of the Procession of the Holy 
Ghost from the Son and from the Father. 

To arid discussions, characterized by the bitterness 
and rancor of religious fanaticism, were added fierce con- 
tentions on either side for increased jurisdiction, aroused 
by the addition to the see of Constantinople of Bulgaria 
and other provinces, conquered by Greek armies and 
converted by Greek missionaries. 

That the final schism should have been delayed must 
be attributed, not merely to the pious horror which so 
direful an event would have inspired, but to the peculiar 
condition of the Greek Empire and Church. There was, 
within the empire, a continual struggle for power, with 
constantly fluctuating success, between contending par- 
ties, and which, from the intimate connection of State 



SEPARATION OF THE CHURCHES-EAST AND WEST. 5 

and Church, affected both. Photius and Ignatius were 
alternately deposed and reinstated. A submissive clergy 
bent to the nod of the sovereign, and venal bishops hailed 
or condemned one prelate after another at command. 
The pope was appealed to in turn by the contending 
factions, and flattered by delusive hopes ; in reality his 
pretensions were hateful to them all, and he was but a 
tool in the hands of the astute Greeks, to be availed of 
when needed, and to be denied when he claimed his 
reward. 

Amid these internal dissensions, these alternate appeals 
to, and rejection of, Romish intervention, a species of 
armed neutrality, of impending, yet deferred hostility, 
seemed to pervade the Churches, and the final catastro- 
phe, though ever threatening, was ever postponed. 

A fresh subject of theological discussion arose early 
in the eleventh century, regarding the use of leavened or 
unleavened bread in the Eucharist. The Greeks adhered 
to the custom of the primitive Church and condemned 
the Latins, who, in the eighth century, had substituted 
unleavened for leavened bread. 

Michael Cerularius, the patriarch, was a prelate as big- 
oted as he was zealous. Chafing against the preten- 
sions of the pope, and resenting his oft-renewed assump- 
tion of superiority, he seized upon this occasion to make 
a violent attack upon the Latin Church and its chief. 
He proclaimed their apostasy from the true faith, ordered 
their churches and monasteries in Constantinople to be 
closed, and prohibited the celebration of their service. 
Retaliatory measures followed in the "West. A final ef- 
fort was made by the emperor, Constantine Monomachus, 
to restore harmony. At his request, Pope Leo IX. sent 
delegates to Constantinople with power to adjust all 
matters of controversy ; but the haughty patriarch, in- 



THE RUSS 



rSSIAN DISSENT. 



censed at the lofty tone assumed by them as ambassadors 
of Kome, refused to admit them to his presence. The 
papal legates, filled with a sense of the august authority 
of their chief, boldly resented the indignity offered him 
in their persons. Eesorting to the great Church of St. 
Sophia, they publicly excommunicated the patriarch and 
his adherents, and reverently deposited the written declar- 
ation of anathema upon the grand altar. By this solemn 
act the schism between the Churches was finally consum- 
mated on the 10th of June, a.d. 1054. 

The points of difference, besides minor matters of prac- 
tice and discipline, may be summarized as being those 
stated in the circular letter of Photius, to which are to 
be added the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the 
Eucharist and the question of papal supremacy. The 
most important, as involving fundamental principles, 
was that concerning the Double Procession of the Holy 
Ghost. The most potent and wide-spread in its influence 
was that regarding Pome's pretension to universal juris- 
diction. It has ever been the chief obstacle at every 
attempt to restore unity. This point the popular mind, 
however bewildered on theological controversies, has 
always been able to appreciate, and by it popular indig- 
nation has always been easily aroused to support clerical 
or state authority. 

The divergence of the two Churches was greater in 
reality than it appears to be from a superficial view. It 
was based on essential variations in the character and 
disposition of the people in the East and in the West, 
on the nature of their civilization, and on the different, 
almost antagonistic, development of the Christian idea 
in one Church and in the other. 

These influences, profoundly affecting the character 
and constitution of the Greek Church, merit consider- 



DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CHURCHES. 7 

ation from the consequences which have ensued and 
which are still perceptible. They aid in appreciating 
the attitude of the Russian Church, as chief exponent 
and representative of the Greek communion, towards 
other Christian denominations ; and they also help to 
explain the dissensions which, in Russia, have arisen 
within its bosom. 

The natural bent of the Greek mind was to speculative 
inquiry ; it was more active and acute, more lively and 
less practical, easily swayed by and interested in scholas- 
tic disquisition and controversy, fond of argument for 
argument's sake, skilled in disputation, nice in definitions 
and distinctions. The East was the home and fountain- 
head of science and literature ; the cultivation of letters 
was there carried to a far greater extent and held in 
higher estimation than in the West. The Greeks were 
vain of their superior learning and more polite culture ; 
they looked down with supercilious contempt upon the 
outer world as mere barbarians ; they felt pride in their 
inheritance of the wisdom and intellect of ancient Greece, 
and gloried in their language, formed and fashioned by 
sages and philosophers, as the only competent vehicle of 
elevated refined thought ; in it Christ taught, the apos- 
tles and early fathers preached and wrote ; the first 
heads of the Church were Greek, and the name of pope 
was Greek. . The Eastern Church rejoiced in its direct 
affiliation with apostolic times, in its careful preservation 
of traditions, and was convinced of its. especial right to 
be considered the true heir and successor of Christ. 

Intellectual and moral progress in the East was, how- 
ever, stifled by political and spiritual despotism when the 
seat of empire was established at Constantinople, and 
the Church came under the immediate protection and 
control of the State. With Christian emperors on the 



8 THE EUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

throne it no longer feared persecution, and, relying on 
the temporal power, it gradually fell into subjection and 
tutelage, a condition fatal to its true development : it 
submitted to the encroachments of imperial authority; 
human passions proved stronger than religious convic- 
tions, and its patriarchs and prelates, eager for advance- 
ment, appealed to the emperor in their mutual quarrels 
and contentions, striving by subserviency and compliance 
to conciliate his favor. The theocratic theory of its in- 
dependence of principalities and powers gradually }aelded 
to servility and dependence ; civil authority became para- 
mount over the Church, influenced or dictated its decrees, 
and was the supreme judge and arbiter of its destinies. 
Spiritual life within it became dead, and its religion de- 
generated to scholastic investigation and metaphysical 
disquisition on barren points of doctrinal belief ; its in- 
tellectual activity, though great and in constant exercise, 
wasted its ingenuity and energy on the study of the 
historical, exegetical, dogmatical side of Christianity, 
and neglected the practical application of its precepts to 
the daily life and conduct of men. The fathers were 
busy in establishing precise definitions, in collecting and 
transmitting to posterity the lore and learning of the 
past, augmented and explained by their comments, rather 
than in endeavoring to improve humanity in the present ; 
nor was this disputatious spirit peculiar to dignitaries of 
the Church, it pervaded all classes of society; in the 
words of Gregory ISTazianzen, " this city is full of me- ' 
chanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theo- 
logians, and preach in the shops and in the streets. If 
you ask a man to change a piece of silver, he informs 
you wherein the Son differs from the Father ; if }^ou de- 
mand the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply 
that the Son is inferior to the Father ; and if you inquire 



DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CHUBCHES. Q 

whether the bath is ready, the answer is that the Son 
was made out of nothing." 1 

The letter of the law superseded the spirit ; religion 
stiffened into formalism ; piety consisted in strict observ- 
ance of ceremonial rites ; external holiness replaced sin- 
cere and heartfelt devotion. 

The Church eagerly embraced the idea of monastic 
discipline, and monasticism exercised profound influence 
upon its destinies ; but in this element of Christian life 
the tendency was the same : convents became the seats 
of mystical theology, of refined speculations on abstruse 
points of doctrine ; penances, mortification of the flesh, 
worship of images and symbols, were spiritualized and 
raised far above the comprehension of the ignorant, who 
could grasp only the outward and material expression, 
and, blindly following their teachers, were plunged into 
the grossest, most superstitious, and idolatrous practices. 

Delight in discussion, fondness for dialectic controver- 
sy and mental gymnastics, led to the development of in- 
herent weaknesses of the Greek character — insincerity, 
fickleness, and disregard of truth. In keen but unscru- 
pulous emulation sophistry became a justifiable weapon 
when reason failed ; falsehood and deception were plied 
without hesitation to compass success. Amid the gen- 
eral degradation manly virtues disappeared from among 
the people. Instead of courageously resisting invasion, 
the empire purchased safety from barbarians, whom it 
despised, but with whom it dared not cope ; the Church, 
in common with the community, suffered from these de- 
basing influences, and sank into spiritual apathy. It 
became stationary, or, as it claimed, and still pretends to 
be, immutable and orthodox. 

1 Gibbon, vol. v., p. 17. 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 



Throughout the West the tendency was in a contrary 
direction — towards the practical application of the re- 
ligious idea. The effete, worn-out civilization of the 
past was there renovated by contact and admixture with 
young and vigorous races, and gained new strength and 
vitality in the struggle for existence. The Church, freed 
from control, became independent and self -asserting ; the 
responsibility of government, the preservation of social 
order, devolved upon it, and it rose proudly to the task ; 
it subdued and conquered by the Word the fierce North- 
ern tribes whom the State was powerless to resist ; by its 
spiritual dominion over them it exalted its station and 
increased its influence ; popes grasped the sceptre of ab- 
sent emperors, and assumed their authority ; they had 
no rival prelates to dispute their claims, and the Western 
Church was united under their sway. What imperial 
Rome lost, papal Rome gained ; it was willing and able 
to protect itself and the people who gathered around it ; 
its independence of the civil power fostered and en- 
couraged the theocratic element which had disappeared 
from the Eastern Church ; the assertion of its divine 
origin and prerogatives raised it to be a judge and arbiter 
between princes, and established its superiority over tem- 
poral rulers ; its army of priests and monks, filled with 
devotional zeal, instead of resting content with spirit- 
ual abstractions and contemplative self-communion, went 
forth boldly as a Church militant, trusting in their sacred 
mission to overcome by preaching and example the ene- 
mies of the faith. Mere learning, polemical discussions, 
scholastic and theological controversies, were secondary 
considerations amid the dislocations of a falling empire 
and the reconstruction of new states, and in the struggle 
for existence. The monastic establishments of the Church 
were organized to fight error, to propagate the truth, and 



DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CHURCHES. H 

to enlarge its domain, not for indulgence in polite ease 
or literary culture, nor for the satisfaction of individual 
aspirations towards an ideal life by asceticism and morti- 
fication of the flesh ; they undertook works of active 
piety, benevolence, and charity, and their inmates were 
inspired by the desire to accomplish good for others 
rather than for themselves. The religious orders were 
instituted for divers ends, with definite and varying pur- 
pose. A spirit of rivalry and emulation among them 
grew with increase of power and wealth, and, while 
acknowledging a single head and pursuing a common 
object, the keen struggle for pre-eminence kept alive 
within them the fervor of religious enthusiasm. From 
the supreme pontiff to the mendicant friar action and 
progress were the characteristics of the Church, and 
blind adoration for the past was forgotten in anxiety 
for the present and hope for the future ; . w T hile recogniz- 
ing ancient authority and tradition, it believed in a con- 
stantly increasing and more thorough comprehension of 
Christ's teachings, and of the essential nature of Christian 
doctrines to be attained by study and gradually revealed. 
Its restless activity, exercised in this direction, saved it 
from the formalism of the East, and preserved the energy 
of its spiritual life ; from progressive it became aggres- 
sive ; victorious over the ^Vest, its ambition was insatia- 
ble, and it looked for other worlds to conquer ; it aimed 
at universal dominion, and claimed to be, not merely 
orthodox, but catholic. 



CHAPTER II. 

Introduction of Christianity into Russia. 

The power and dignity of the Church in the East 
were doomed to dwindle and decrease with the waning 
glories of the lower empire. Its patriarchs were to be- 
come mere puppets of court favor, nominees and syco- 
phants of an infidel sovereign ; but brighter destinies 
and renewed splendor awaited it in other climes. From 
the dwarfed and puny shoulders of the effeminate Greek 
its mantle was to fall on the strong and stalwart frame 
of the Barbarian; enervated and lifeless in its ancient 
home, it was to be rejuvenated by the bracing atmosphere 
of the North, and spring again into fresh and youthful 
life in the rude, inhospitable regions of its later conquests. 

But little is positively known regarding the first in- 
troduction of Christianity into Eussia, although legends 
and traditions abound. 

In popular belief, the city of Novgorod was founded 
by Japhet, son of Noah, and thither St. Andrew came to 
preach the gospel. The wild and barbarous natives ridi- 
culed teachings so contrary to their fierce and savage 
habits. They found amusement in tormenting the apos- 
tle and mocking his simplicity ; they plunged him, bound 
with cords, into a bath heated to the utmost, and the 
saint, distressed and suffocated by the vapor, exclaimed, 
" iBpcoora " (" I sweat ") ; hence, it is said, came the name 
of Roussa, or Russia. Moved by his patience and meek- 
ness, his rough hosts released him, listened to his words, 



LEGENDS OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 13 

and believed. They glory over all the rest of the people 
of Muscovy for being rooted in the faith from ancient 
times, and having been the first to receive it. 

Novgorod is a city of great antiquity, and its religious 
edifices are held in deepest veneration by the people. In 
popular tradition its celebrated monastery of St. Anthony 
the Great, or "the Roman," was founded by a monk of 
Rome, who, during the persecution for image worship, 
was miraculously borne upon a rock from the Tiber, 
over seas and rivers, to Novgorod on Lake Ilmen. The 
treasures of his convent, which he had consigned to the 
waters, followed him on his voyage. At Novgorod he 
found a Christian church, of which St. Nikita was metro- 
politan ; with him Anthony joined in prayer, and imme- 
diately a knowledge of each other's tongue was imparted 
to them both. The ruler of the city gave him land for 
a convent ; and his treasures, fished up from the lake, 
provided sacred furniture for the altars. The boat of 
stone still excites the devotion of the worshippers, and 
the palm branches in the chapel are still as green as 
when brought from Rome by Anthon} r . 

Of St. Nikita it is related that he shut up Satan in a 
jar, and released him upon condition that he would carry 
him to Jerusalem and back. Thus the saint visited the 
holy places of the East in a single night. 

These pious legends generally bear impress of the 
Oriental origin of the Church. 

The Russian monk, Nestor, who died in 111G, relates 
in his chronicle that St. Andrew the Apostle, journeying 
by the river Dnieper, on his way from Asia Minor to 
Rome, came to the hills surmounting the site of the city 
of Kiev, and on their summit, after kneeling in prayer, 
he exclaimed to his companions : " Behold this moun- 
tain, for it is here that the grace of God shall shine 



14 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

forth. A great city shall arise on this spot, and in it 
the Lord shall have many temples to His name." l 

Byzantine annalists record the labors of St. Peter of 
Kiev, a Greek monk sent thither by the Emperor Basil, 
the Macedonian, and who was, according to them, the 
first metropolitan of Bussia. The heathen inhabitants 
demanded proof of the divine nature of his teachings ; 
to convince them he passed, uninjured, with the Gospel 
in his hands, through a great fire kindled by them, where- 
upon they all embraced the faith. He repeated the same 
miracle among the Muscovites, and they also were con- 
verted. 

The patriarch Photius, in a circular letter addressed to 
the Eastern bishops in a.d. 866, speaks of the Bussians as 
having renounced their pagan superstitions and professed 
the faith of Jesus Christ, and adds that he has sent them 
a bishop and priests. 

In the same year Oskold and Dir, companions of Buric 
and rulers of Kiev, pursuing their quest for booty and 
plunder, descended the Dnieper and appeared before 
Constantinople; the city was saved by the miraculous 
interposition of the Virgin ; her robe, a relic of the 
Church of Blacherne, was bathed in the sea, whereon a 
furious tempest arose which dispersed the hostile fleet. 
According to Greek chroniclers the Bussian princes, 
struck with awe, abjured their heathen gods and em- 
braced Christianity. These chroniclers also enumerate 
Bussia as the seventieth archbishopric depending on the 
see of Constantinople. 

The recruitment of the imperial body-guard from the 
Yaragians along and bevond the Dnieper, bringing many 
from those regions under Christian influences, and the 

1 La Chronique de Nestor, vol. i., p. 6. 



LABORS OF ST. CYRIL AND ST. METHODIUS. 15 

intercourse between Eussians and Greeks, arising from 
trade and from frequent predatory excursions of the for- 
mer against the empire, doubtless combined to spread 
among them some knowledge of Christianity. Efforts 
for their conversion, attempted by emperors preceding 
Basil I., were continued by him and by his successors, 
stimulated by their desire, during the struggles of the 
Greek Church with Rome, to extend its sway. A treaty, 
concluded in 945, between Igur of Kiev and Constant in e 
VII., distinguishes Eussians who had been baptized from 
those who were yet pagans, and makes mention of a 
church at Kiev, dedicated to St. Elias. 

From these scanty and confused historical data it 
would appear that Christianity had penetrated into Rus- 
sia prior to the middle of the tenth century. 

The conversion of the savage tribes who occupied the 
vast deserts of Dacia and Sarmatia was preceded, and 
the way for it prepared, by the missionary labors of the 
Greek Church along the Danube and in the Chersonesus. 
Slavonic tribes, who had heard of Christ, applied to Con- 
stantinople for teachers. Constantine Cypharas, a monk 
better known as St. Cyril, was sent to them by Michael 
III. in 860. He called to his assistance his brother 
Methodius, and they both, animated by true apostolic 
zeal, extended their mission to the surrounding pagans. 
They invented a Slavonic alphabet, translated the Script- 
ures and the Liturgy, and celebrated religious services 
in the language of the people, according to the rites of 
the Greek Church. Their lives were devoted with single- 
hearted earnestness to the conversion of the heathen, and 
the results of their missionary efforts spread far beyond 
the sphere of their labors. They had great influence 
upon the growth and destinies of the Church in Eussia, 
where their translations of the Bible and the Liturgy 



16 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

into Slavonic were subsequently adopted, and their prac- 
tice of celebrating the service in a language familiar to 
the people was followed. 

In 955 Olga, wife of Igur, ruler of Kiev, mother of 
Sviatoslav, and whom Nestor calls " the dawn and morn- 
ing-star of salvation for Eussia," journeyed to Constan- 
tinople in search of knowledge of the true God, and 
was there baptized by the name of Helena, in memory 
of the sainted mother of Constantine the Great. The 
humble creed and self-denying precepts of her new re- 
ligion were repugnant to the rude barbarian, her son, a 
proud and haughty chief of fierce warriors ; but he re- 
spected the genius and virtues of his mother, who, ven- 
erated and loved by his people, was surnamed by them 
" the Wise." He tolerated and protected the belief she 
professed, and confided his children to her care. His 
son, "Vladimir, was a kindred spirit to his own — enter- 
prising and ambitious, of fiery passions, strong and en- 
thusiastic temperament, imbued with the superstitions 
and addicted to the gross and sensual indulgences of his 
race, fit leader of hardy and rapacious tribes, whose only 
occupation was war, and whose pastimes were revelry 
and the chase. A zealous worshipper of idols, Yladimir 
erected a huge image of Peroun, the God of Thunder, 
and offered to it human sacrifices. To celebrate a victory 
over a neighboring tribe, lots were cast for a victim, 
and fell on Feodor, son of Ivan, a Christian Yaragian ; 
the father refused to yield him up, mocked the heathen 
deities of wood and stone, and declared the God of the 
Greeks to be the true and only God ; whereon the peo- 
ple massacred them both — the first and the only martyrs 
of the Church at Kiev. Vladimir's success in war spread 
his renown abroad ; his alliance was courted, and his 
conversion became an object of solicitude to nations near 



CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR AND HIS PEOPLE. 17 

and remote. Emissaries came to him from the Mahome- 
tan Bulgarians and the Khorazian Jews, from the Latin 
Christians of Germany and Rome, and from the Greeks 
of Constantinople. To each of them he returned a char- 
acteristic reply. The pleasures of Mahomet's paradise 
were tempting, but he refused to be circumcised or to 
abstain from pork or from wine, " for drinking," said he, 
" is the delight of Kussians, nor can we live without it." 
Of the Jews he asked : " Where is your country V and 
when they acknowledged that for their sins God had 
driven them forth and scattered them over the earth, he 
indignantly rejoined, " Do you, whom your God has for- 
saken and dispersed, pretend to teach others, and would 
you have us share your fate?" The Western doctors 
were dismissed with scant courtesy, as coming from 
troublesome neighbors ; " Our fathers have never be- 
lieved in your religion," said he. He listened more at- 
tentively to the Greek, who alternately aroused and 
soothed his superstitious fears by eloquently depicting 
the future torments of the wicked and the reward of the 
righteous, enforcing his words by pictures representing 
the Judgment Day. " Tell me more," said Yladimir, 
" happy are those seated on the right, wretched the sin- 
ners on the left." All the mysteries of the Orthodox 
faith were explained ; he was deeply moved, and perhaps 
recalled the teaching of his grandmother Olga. In the 
succeeding year, 987, by the advice of his boyars, he sent 
trusty counsellors to examine in different countries the 
religion of each. At Constantinople the importance of 
their mission was more seriously realized than elsewhere, 
and every effort was made by the emperor and the pa- 
triarch to impress their imaginations and convince them 
of the superiority of the Greek Church. They were 
dazzled by the magnificence of the court, and transported 
2 



18 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

by the splendor and imposing ceremonies of the ritual. 
" When we stood in the temple," said they, on their re- 
turn, " we hardly knew whether or not we were in heaven, 
for, in truth, upon earth it is impossible to behold such 
glory and magnificence ; we could not tell all we have 
seen ; there, verily, God has His dwelling among men, 
and the worship of other countries is as nothing. Never 
can we forget the grandeur which we saw. Whoever 
has enjoyed so sweet a sight can never elsewhere be sat- 
isfied, nor will we remain longer as we are." ' They ad- 
duced Olga's example as an additional reason for adopt- 
ing the Eastern faith : "If the Greek religion had not 
been good," they urged, " thy grandmother Olga, wisest 
of mortals, had not embraced it." Vladimir still hesi- 
tated ; but when, in the following year, his armies were 
held in check before the walls of Kherson, he made a 
vow to be baptized if he captured the city. It fell, and 
then the crafty prince, eager for every advantage, de- 
manded as a condition of peace and of his conversion 
the hand of Anna, sister of Basil II., in marriage, threat- 
ening otherwise to march on Constantinople. An old 
prophecy of unknown origin was current in the tenth 
century on the shores of the Bosphorus, and had been 
inscribed on the statue of Bellerophon within the city 
walls, that " the Russians would some day seize upon the 
capital of the Empire of the East." It has not yet been 
forgotten, and it may, in those ancient days, have influ- 
enced the emperor's decision. The danger was imminent, 
and in order to avert it and to bring so powerful an ene- 
my under the banner of the cross, the haughty Greek 
consented, and, in spite of her reluctance, sent the Princess 
Anna, with a retinue of priests, to Kherson. On her ar- 

1 Nestor, vol. i., p. 122. 



CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR AND HIS PEOPLE. 19 

rival she found Vladimir suffering from a sudden attack 
of blindness ; but when the bishop laid hands upon him 
in baptism he recovered his sight and exclaimed, " Now 
it is that I know the true God !" 

On his return to Kiev he commenced, with character- 
istic energy, the propagation of the new faith ; his twelve 
sons and all the people, by his command and under pen- 
alty of his anger, were baptized ; idols were overthrown, 
the great statue of Peroun was cast into the Dnieper, 
and the entire nation, with a unanimity and suddenness 
that have no parallel in the religious history of Europe, 
turned from paganism to Christianity at the bidding of 
its prince. 

Doubtless the labors of early missionaries, in neigh- 
boring countries, had prepared the way, while the trans- 
lations of the Bible and of the Liturgy into Slavonic by 
Cyril and Methodius assisted in the dissemination of 
the truth. By popularizing the holy books, they tended 
to impart, from the first, a religious tone to the litera- 
ture of Russia, and a national spirit to its religion. 

The docile and submissive nature of the people had 
been exemplified centuries before, when they summoned 
Ruric to reign over them. " Our country is vast and 
fertile," said they to him ; " all things abound therein, 
but order and justice are wanting ; come, therefore, gov- 
ern and rule over us." 

It was again illustrated by their ready compliance in 
matters of belief with the commands of their ruler, and 
explains the character, at once popular, national, and 
loyal, of the Russian Church. At the same time, the 
extraordinary power of sacred pictures, and the devotion- 
al feeling which they excite in the Russian mind, the re- 
gard for ceremonial and external rites, the rigid adher- 
ence to ancient forms, the strong tincture of Oriental- 



20 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ism which pervades the Church, mark the influences 
which surrounded its birth and its affiliation with Con- 
stantinople. 

Yladimir, from his conversion to his death, remained 
steadfast and zealous in the faith. He exhibited by his 
acts, throughout his later career, the depth and earnest- 
ness of his convictions. Architects and builders, bish- 
ops, priests, and teachers, were summoned from the East. 
In all the cities of his realm he erected churches and es- 
tablished schools ; at Kiev he built a cathedral and there 
founded the metropolitan see, over which St. Michael, 
and, after him, St. Leontius, prelates from Constantino- 
ple, were called to preside. By a formal decree he pro- 
vided for the regular support of the Church establish- 
ment and the clergy, setting aside for the purpose a 
tenth part of the revenues of his kingdom and of his 
subjects. He based his legislation upon the Greek lomo- 
canon, which embodies the canons and decisions of the 
seven oecumenical councils, and, in accordance therewith, 
he gave to the Church exclusive jurisdiction over eccle- 
siastical affairs, pronouncing his curse upon any of his 
descendants, or any officers of state, who should, in the 
present or the future, disturb or infringe upon the regu- 
lations thus declared. The authenticity of this enact- 
ment, which is attributed to him, is doubtful ; but his 
persistent devotion to the interests of the Church is 
abundantly proven. Few princes can show better title 
to the admiration of posterity than Vladimir, who, a 
rude pagan warrior, became a wise and Christian ruler. 
Known in history as the " Great," and canonized by the 
Church as " Equal to the Apostles," he lives also in popu- 
lar song and tradition ; his exploits are related in Byzan- 
tine annals, Arab chronicles, and Scandinavian sagas. 
He cleared forests, sent colonies into the wilderness, re- 



CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR AND HIS TEOPLE. 21 

claimed deserts, founded cities, promulgated laws, admin- 
istered justice, encouraged learning and the arts, over- 
threw paganism, established Christianity, and called into 
Eussia all the civilizing influences that the world, in his 
time, could offer. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Russian Church from its Establishment to its Independence of 
Constantinople. — The Unia and the Orthodox Church in Poland ; 
Separation of the Latter from the Church in Russia. 

After the death of Yladimir, in 1015, bloody and 
fratricidal strife between the appanaged princes deso- 
lated Russia until Yaroslav, his son, succeeded in uniting 
the whole kingdom under his sway. 

Yaroslav, great among the greatest of Russian mon- 
archs, followed his father's example. He sedulously fos- 
tered the growth of the Church as an element of his own 
power. With its growth its national character was de- 
veloped. It evinced its jealousy of foreign influence 
by the election, in 1051, of Hilarion, a native Russian, 
as metropolitan, without reference to Constantinople. 
Churches were multiplied in all the cities, and the first 
monastic establishments were founded. The most cele- 
brated of these, from the great influence which it exert- 
ed upon the civil and religious destinies of Russia, and 
from the profound veneration in which it is and always 
has been held by the people, merits more than a passing 
notice. 

A pilgrim from Lubetsch became a monk in the Holy 
Land, under the name of Anthony, and was distinguished 
for exemplary humility and devotion. His superiors 
marked his vocation for ccenobitic life, and, giving him 
their blessing, ordered him back to Russia, prophesying 
the success which would attend his labors in his native 



MONASTERY OF THE PETCHERSKI. 23 

land. On his return, about 1013, he was divinely guid- 
ed, in his search for a retreat, to the mountain near 
Kiev, where the metropolitan Ililarion had, when a sim- 
ple priest, been wont to resort for solitary prayer and 
meditation ; there, in the cave, two fathoms deep, dug 
out for himself by Ililarion, Anthony took up his abode 
and lived a hermit's life of fasting and self-denial. The 
fame of his piety spread through the land, and the peo- 
ple far and near revered him as a saint. Yaroslav and 
his son Isiaslav, with the court, came frequently to im- 
plore his blessing ; and soon other devotees joined him, 
and dug their caves by his. As their numbers increased, 
Anthony appointed Barlaam to rule over them as abbot, 
and retired farther into the forest to be alone. A 
church and a cloister were added to the subterranean 
dwellings which burrowed far into the mountain, and by 
degrees other churches and an immense monastery, ded- 
icated to the Assumption of the Virgin, arose around and 
above the caves of the early brethren, in memory of 
which it was called the Petcherski. 1 

The prince and the great lords were prodigal of their 
riches in founding and endowing other religious estab- 
lishments, but none, writes Nestor, one of its inmates, 
prospered as did the Petcherski, " created without silver 
or gold, of which Anthony had none, but by fasting 
and watching, by tears and prayers." Feodoce'i, " hum- 
blest of the brethren," succeeded Barlaam. lie com- 
pleted the organization of the brotherhood according to 
the strict rules of the Studium monastery of Constanti- 
nople. As it was the first, so it became the most cele- 
brated of the monasteries of Kussia, and the source from 
which many sprang. 

1 From petdiera, meaning cave or cavern. 



24 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

What Jerusalem and the Temple were to the Jews, 
Kiev and the Petcherski are to the Russians. The vast 
and mysterious catacombs are peopled by the bodies of 
thousands of holy men, who still rest in the caverns 
where they lived ; miracles are worked by their remains, 
and keep alive the ardent devotion of innumerable wor- 
shippers at their shrines. 

When Christianity was introduced in Russia the schism 
dividing the East and the West, although threatening, 
was not declared, and the Russian establishment was a 
branch of the Church universal, still, in theory, one and 
indivisible. The final separation, consummated in 1054, 
aroused but little, if any, attention in Russia. The 
Church there, deriving its origin, its creed, and its ritual 
from Constantinople, followed as of course the fortunes 
of its parent stem. It ignored the doctrines of Rome, 
and, while it watched with jealousy any unnecessary in- 
terference on the part of the patriarch, whom it acknowl- 
edged, it resented from the first all pretensions of the 
popes to jurisdiction over it. Its flourishing condition 
had already attracted notice, and Rome was in haste to 
commence the long series of her attempts to bring it 
under her authority. 

Yaroslav's reign was followed by long and bloody civil 
wars. Isiaslav, his son, driven from power, found refuge 
in Germany and obtained promises of support from Pope 
Gregory VII. upon condition of submitting his kingdom 
and the Church to the Roman see. In the bewildering 
maze of revolution and counter-revolution Isiaslav re- 
gained his throne without foreign aid, and Gregory's 
schemes came to naught. 

The short reign of Vladimir II., Monomachus, a wise 
and pious prince, was the only respite in a century and 
a half of anarchy. During this dreary period of civil 



GENERAL ANARCHY.— GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 25 

wars, culminating in national subjugation by the Tatars, 
the history of the Church alone affords some relief to the 
gloomy picture. It extended its peaceful conquests over 
the North and towards the West, and its annals are illus- 
trated by the lives of holy men and devoted missiona- 
ries. As a body it gained in strength and vigor ; its in- 
fluence was courted and its assistance invoked by the 
rival claimants of the crown, but it suffered in its purity 
and dignity by stooping to favor the pretensions of the, 
for the moment, successful competitor, transferring its 
support from the weaker to the stronger, as they fell and 
rose. The fortunes of its primates depended upon those 
of the princes, and, as they passed in rapid succession on 
the throne, so bishop after bishop sat in the metropoli- 
tan chair, and, in the twelfth century, three rival prelates 
at one time claimed possession of ecclesiastical sover- 
eignty. 

Amid civil dissensions the Church again manifested 
its spirit of nationality and its impatience of foreign dic- 
tation. In 1147 a synod of native bishops elected Clem- 
ent, a Russian prelate, as metropolitan, without reference 
to Constantinople. 

Political anarchy had its parallel in doctrinal differ- 
ences among the clergy, and then, as in the graver 
schisms to arise in later years, these differences related 
to matters of practice and not of dogma. 

At the commencement of the twelfth century relig- 
ious antagonism to the Church of the AVest w T as stimu- 
lated by national feeling in a struggle with a foreign 
enemy. 

The orders of the Teutonic Knights and of the Breth- 
ren of the Sword, incited by Rome, had subdued Lithu- 
ania and Livonia. Under the banner of the Latin Church 
they attacked Russia on the west, aiming not merely at 



26 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 



conquest, but at the establishment of papal suprem- 
acy. 

Soon after, the Tatars appeared on the east, crossed 
the Volga in 1237, and, in successive invasions, spread 
over the country like an overwhelming deluge. Not- 
withstanding the patriotic efforts of the popular hero and 
saint, Alexander Yaroslavitch, known in Kussian history 
as the " Nevsky," for his great victory over Swedes and 
Lithuanians on the banks of the Neva, the Tatar khan 
was everywhere triumphant, and Russian princes accept- 
ed his sway. Finally the Church recognized his author- 
ity, but it is her glory that she was the last to submit ; 
that even then she maintained the faith, never lost hope 
for the future, and strove ever to keep alive the dying 
pulsations of national life. 

Russia's extremity was Rome's opportunity. Pope 
Innocent IV. offered to arouse the Christian princes of 
Europe in a crusade against the Mongols, if the Russian 
Church would unite with that of Rome and acknowledge 
his supremacy. His proposals were disdainfully refused ; 
Russian princes and the Church preferred submission to 
the khan rather than recognition of the pope. 

The Tatar conqueror speedily realized the mighty in- 
fluence of the Church and the clergy over the people, 
and endeavored to enlist their support to strengthen his 
authority. By his favor and protection, amid the gen- 
eral ruin, they increased greatly in power and wealth ; 
but, during this period of anarchy and disorder, grievous 
abuses crept into the one, while ignorance and corrup- 
tion degraded the other. The metropolitan Cyril, a 
Russian, keenly sensible of these evils, was indefatigable 
in his efforts to correct them. By his direction a synod 
was convened in 1247 for the reformation of the Church 
and to inflict discipline upon the clergy. His patriotism 



RISE OF MOSCOW UNDER IVAN L, "KALITA." 27 

equalled his religious zeal, and he labored incessantly to 
create among the Eussian princes a spirit of harmony 
and unity as the only hope for the future. 

Maximus, a Greek from Constantinople, followed Cy- 
ril on the metropolitan throne. Although a foreigner, 
he proved a worthy successor, and, like Cyril, endeav- 
ored to check the never-ending feuds and wars between 
the native princes. His virtues and Christian character 
inspired the Tatar conquerors with respect, and, by per- 
sonal intercession with the " Horde," he added greatly 
to the power and prosperity of the Church. The clergy, 
under his direction, always sympathizing profoundly 
with the people, availed themselves of their increased 
influence and wealth to protect the victims of Tatar 
tyranny, and to assuage their misery and sufferings. 

As Kiev was in ruins, Maximus transferred the pri- 
macy to Yladimir, then chief among the Russian cities. 

Moscow soon rose to importance under Ivan (John) I., 
surnamed "Kalita," from his habit of bestoAvmg alms 
upon the poor from his purse. 1 This prince, established 
in authority and protected by the khan, maintained com- 
parative peace and order within his principality ; with its 
prosperity his power increased, and he became pre-emi- 
nent among the native magnates. He was wise and 
politic, ambitious yet patriotic. While keeping faith 
with his Tatar sovereign, he endeavored to unite the 
native princes under one head, which head he aspired to 
be, as the only means of securing present tranquillity for 
Russia and its eventual liberation. He also fully real- 
ized the vast power wielded by the Church, which, by 
affording protection to the people and maintaining them 
steadfast in the faith, had alone preserved any semblance 

1 Kalita means a pouch, or a purse. 



28 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

of national life. This power it was his constant aim to 
increase and to enlist in support of his own authority. 
His purpose had the quick sympathy of the metropoli- 
tan Peter, who had succeeded Maximus. Ambition, pa- 
triotism, and religion were combined to one common 
end. Prince and primate were united in hearty, harmo- 
nious co-operation. By their joint action the primacy 
was transferred to Moscow, henceforth to be the capital 
of the empire and the seat of the head of the Church. 
Peter died before the transfer was effected, and his last 
words were a prophecy of the future greatness of the 
new imperial city, and of the glory therein awaiting the 
Church. His body was placed at the corner of the ca- 
thedral erected to commemorate the event, and he, with 
his illustrious successors, Alexis, Jonah, and the martyred 
Philip, are accounted the foundation stones of the Rus- 
sian Church. 

Ivan's efforts towards the creation of an independent 
and united Russia were recognized in the title bestowed 
upon him by his people of " the Restorer of the Coun- 
try." They were, however, not destined to bear imme- 
diate fruition. The future of the empire was jeopard- 
ized, in successive reigns, by renewed dissensions among 
the princes and by dangers threatening from hostile 
neighbors. 

The turbulent republics of Novgorod and of Pskov 
were ever at variance with the great prince of Moscow, 
but the powerful kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, ex- 
tending beyond the Dnieper and including Kiev, was a 
more terrible enemy. Within its territory the influence 
of Rome was paramount. 

In these critical times the Church in Russia, though 
torn by intestine dissensions and claims of rival pontiffs 
for pre-eminence, remained faithful to the national cause. 



MONASTERY OF THE TROITSA. 29 

Its acknowledged heads labored with unswerving patriot- 
ism against the difficulties surrounding the new birth of 
the nation. The dynasty of Ivan Kalita had been set 
aside by the khan. Dimitri II., the Tatar nominee, 
planned the retransfer of the primacy to Yladimir ; but 
Alexis, the metropolitan, successfully maintained the su- 
premacy of Moscow as both the religious and political 
capital. By his influence Ivan's family was restored to 
the throne, and the accession of Dimitri III., his grand- 
son, was welcomed by the princes, who began to appre- 
ciate the policy advocated by the Church, of hereditary 
succession and of union under the most powerful of their 
number. 

The activity of the Church was further manifested in 
its own domain by the erection of innumerable churches 
in the different cities and by an extraordinary develop- 
ment of monastic life, which led to the creation of many 
great and powerful religious establishments. The most 
celebrated among them is the monastery of the Tro'itsa, 
or the Trinity, near Moscow, founded by St. Sergius of 
Eadonegl. Like St. Anthony of the Petcherski, St. Ser- 
gius retired to the wilderness to lead a hermit's life in a 
little wooden hut built by himself, and which he called 
the " Source of Life." From this humble origin sprang 
the " ever glorious Lavra " of the Troitsa, destined, on 
many a memorable occasion, to be the bulwark and pre- 
server of the national existence. Under the blessing of 
Providence, favored and fostered by the princes of Mos- 
cow, it increased with unexampled rapidity in riches and 
consideration, and became a city and fortress as well as 
a monastery. 

Macarius, in the seventeenth century, after describing 
its wealth and splendor, its buildings and churches, dwells 
on the extent and strength of its walls and bastions, on 



30 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

its armory "furnished with cannon without number," 
" with arms and accoutrements for more than thirty thou- 
sand men," and " its guns in numberless quantities." x 
The military glory of this sacred fortress dates from the 
great victory of the Don. When Dimitri went forth to 
do battle with the Tatar, St. Sergius gave him his bless- 
ing, and sent his brother monks, Peresvet and Osliab, to 
fight by the prince's side. 

Dimitri III., " the Donskoi," ascended the throne in 
1362. Skilful and prudent in warfare, chivalrous, while 
politic, in dealing with his rivals, beloved by his people, 
he was also devoted to the Church, whose* vast influence 
was constantly exerted in his behalf. Victorious in re- 
pelling Polish invasions, he finally succeeded in uniting 
the whole country under his sway. 

The metropolitan Alexis, to whom, more than to any 
one, were due the establishment of the empire and the 
revival of Eussian nationality, lived to see the fruition of 
his labors. He was very old, but, while yet alive, the 
patriarch of Constantinople, with indecorous haste, moved 
perhaps by anxiety at the progress of the Koman Church 
in Poland, appointed Cyprian as his successor. The great 
prince indignantly resented this unseemly premature act, 
and Cyprian retired to Kiev. At Alexis's death Dimi- 
tri hurried his favorite, Mitai, to Constantinople to ob- 
tain the investiture, although he was not a prelate of the 
Church. He died on the way, and his companion, Pimen, 
fraudulently secured his own nomination by forged let- 
ters of credence. On his return he was thrust into prison 
for this scandalous abuse of confidence, and Cyprian was 
summoned from Kiev. 

During these ecclesiastical disputes the Tatar power 

1 Macarius, vol. ii., p. 144. 



BATTLE OF THE DON.— ANARCHY IN THE CHURCH. 31 

was broken by the great battle of the Don, and Dimitri, 
henceforth the Donskoi*, was hailed as " The Deliverer 
of the Country." The victory over Mamai, the Tatar 
khan, was complete, but its fruits were lost ; Dimitri 
returned to Moscow to enjoy his triumph, instead of 
pursuing and annihilating the enemy. His glory and 
increasing power aroused the jealousy of his neighbors, 
and his supineness revived the feuds of the native 
princes. The empire was attacked from the west, and its 
unity within was disturbed, when its independence was 
again threatened by its formidable and hereditary foe. 
Toktamuish, a descendant of Genghis Khan, destroyed 
the shattered forces of Mamai, seized upon the khanate, 
and, with fresh legions from the depths of Asia, swept 
over the empire and brought Russia once more under 
the Tatar yoke. Dimitri returned to his ruined capital 
to find the Church deserted by its head. Cyprian had fled 
to Tver for safety, and the prince, indignant at his pusil- 
lanimity, removed him from office and installed Pimen. 

The terrible calamities of the barbaric invasion were 
accompanied by anarchy in the Church. The clergy had 
become corrupt and rapacious; its ranks were swelled 
by multitudes of greedy, selfish drones, who throve and 
fattened in sloth and idleness. The people despised them 
for their ignorance, vices, and gluttony, groaned under 
their oppression and rebelled against their exactions. 
Popular indignation found public expression in sects hos- 
tile to the Church. Amid disputes of rival pontiffs, the 
degradation of the clergy, foreign invasion, domestic 
treachery and revolt, the whole fabric of the empire, so- 
cial, political, and religious, seemed tottering to its fall. 
Some degree of order was restored by the energetic and 
skilful policy of Dimitri, assisted by dissensions among 
his enemies. 



32 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

The death of Piinen left Cyprian sole claimant of ec- 
clesiastical sovereignty, and, in the succeeding reign, he 
returned to the capital and united the whole Orthodox 
Church of Russia and Poland under his jurisdiction. 
His subsequent career marks his place in the history of 
his country. While he may be reproached for his hasty 
flight from Moscow, the services which he rendered the 
Church and the nation cannot be overestimated. By his 
Christian virtues, his zeal, tempered by prudence, his dis- 
cretion and ability, he preserved the existence of the 
Orthodox faith in Poland and Lithuania, whose rulers 
professed the Latin creed, favored the efforts of Rome, 
and viewed with jealousy the control of a foreign prelate 
over their Orthodox subjects. As metropolitan, Cyprian's 
administration was wise and energetic ; he repressed dis- 
order, corrected abuses, and strictly enforced purity of 
morals and discipline among the clergy. He encouraged 
the labors of St. Stephen and other missionaries of the 
Church, and established regular ecclesiastical government 
over the converted heathen tribes of the vast countries 
stretching to the Ural Mountains. 

As patriot and statesman, he ably seconded the efforts 
of the great prince Yassili II., to recreate a free and in- 
dependent Russia, conciliating the native princes, oppos- 
ing the formidable pretensions of Yitoft, King of Poland, 
resisting, with all the power of the Church, the Tatars 
under Toktamuish and Tamerlane. When dying, in 1406, 
Cyprian wrote to the great prince and his boyars, to the 
clergy and the people, asking forgiveness of his offences, 
and giving them his benediction. Tears and lamenta- 
tions followed the reading of his words at the altar of 
the great cathedral, and from this time metropolitans of 
Moscow, at the approach of death, have addressed simi- 
lar farewell messages to the nation. 



KIEV IXDEPEXDENT.-COUXCIL OF FLORENCE. 33 

Cyprian's death was a public calamity. His successor, 
Photius, a Greek, had no sympathy with the national 
sentiment, and estranged both the people and the princes 
by too zealous care of the temporal interests of his see. 
Vitoft, no longer checked by Cyprian's influence, deter- 
mined to free the Orthodox Church within his dominions 
from the control of a foreign prelate. The see of Kiev 
was declared independent of that of Moscow in 1415 ; 
rejoined to it a few years later, its independence was 
again and finally established in 1133. 

Under Yassili III. the fortunes of Eussia sank to 
their lowest ebb. Civil wars, foreign invasion, and Tatar 
tyranny brought the country to the verge of ruin. The 
metropolitan see remained vacant after the death of 
Photius, and anarchy reigned supreme in Church and 
State. 

During a short respite from turmoil and trouble, Jonah 
of Eiazan was elected metropolitan by a synod of bish- 
ops, but already the patriarch had appointed Isidore of 
Thessalonica, bishop of Illyria, as primate of Eussia. 
With his advent upon the scene opens an interesting 
phase of ecclesiastical history, in which, not only Eussia, 
but the other powers of the civilized world were con- 
cerned. 

The Byzantine empire, a mere shadow of its former 
greatness, was tottering to its fall. The emperors, de- 
pendent alternately on Turkish forbearance and Euro- 
pean favor, sued to or slighted both Moslem and Chris- 
tian powers according to their fluctuating fortunes, cun- 
ningly, and with deliberation, playing one against the 
other. 

John Palasologus, as long as Bajazet spared his throne, 
turned an indifferent ear to papal advances, but when he 
had been threatened he had humbled himself before the 
3 



34 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

pope, kissed his slipper at St. Peter's, and led his mule 
by the bridle. The Greek people, on the contrary, were 
fanatically attached to their ancient religion, although 
among them it had degenerated to mere formalism. 

The Roman Church was torn by faction and schism ; 
rival pontiffs disputed St. Peter's chair, the pope's su- 
premacy had been denied by its prelates and councils, 
as well as by princes, and his authority was no longer 
absolute over either the Western Church or the Western 
powers. 

When John Palseologus, again menaced by the Turks 
under Amurat II., turned to Europe for succor, Pope 
Eugenius IY. eagerly seized upon the opportunity thus 
presented of reconciling and uniting the Churches of the 
East and of the West, in the hope that the glory of this 
achievement would, by re-establishing the supremacy of 
Pome over the whole Church, redound to his advantage 
and silence all opposition to his claim to be its legitimate 
head. He relied upon the support of Isidore, an adroit, 
ambitious schemer, distinguished for his eloquence and. 
diplomatic tact, celebrated for theological erudition and 
learning. He was, moreover, a personal friend of the 
pope, whose influence is supposed to have assisted in his 
elevation to the exalted position of chief of the Pussian 
Church. 

In furtherance of his plans Eugenius convoked an 
oecumenical council in Italy, where his own influence 
was paramount. All the Western powers were present, 
and, by specious promises of material assistance, he in- 
duced the Greeks to join. The participation of so pow- 
erful a member of the Eastern Church as Pussia was 
most important, and Isidore had scarcely taken posses- 
sion of his see ere he was summoned, and craved of 
Yassili permission, to attend. Yassili yielded a reluctant 



COUNCIL OF FLORENCE.-ACT OF UNION. 35 

assent, and charged Isidore to strenuously uphold the 
Orthodox faith, and to return with it intact. " Our 
fathers," said he, " and our ancestors would never listen 
to the reunion of the Greek and Latin religions, nor 
have I any such intention. Yet you may go, if such 
be your desire; I will not oppose your departure, but 
remember the purity of our faith and come back with it 
unsullied." ! 

The council met at Ferrara in 1438 ; adjourned to 
Florence, and separated in 1439. Its sessions were vio- 
lent and stormy, its debates acrimonious and endless. 
Accord between the opposing parties which composed it 
was hopeless, but the emperor and the pope were deter- 
mined not to lose the fruit of their labors, and to se- 
cure, by any possible means, at least the semblance of a 
union. Private negotiations supplemented public discus- 
sions, and with more profitable results. Isidore was prom- 
ised a cardinal's hat, and, by similar influences, opposition 
was gradually reduced to the single voice of Mark of 
Ephesus, who denounced the compact in unmeasured 
terms, and was compelled to seek safety in flight. 

The reunion of the Churches was proclaimed by the 
council, and the articles of reconciliation, subscribed to 
unanimously by the members present, bore on four im- 
portant points. They declared, 

That either leavened or unleavened bread might be 
used in the Eucharist. 

That, as regards purgatory, the righteous enjoy eter- 
nal happiness in heaven ; unrepentant sinners suffer eter- 
nally ; while those who have relapsed into sin after bap- 
tism and repentance are purified in some intermediate 
state, by various torments, until penance be accomplished ; 

1 Karamsin, vol. v., p. 335. 



36 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

and, at the resurrection of the body on the last day, all 
men must render an account before the judgment-seat 
of God. 

That the pope of Home is the vicar of Jesus Christ, 
the head of the Church on earth, and the patriarch of 
Constantinople holds the second place after him. 

That the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and 
from the Son. 

The pope and the emperor reaped their rewards. Eu- 
genius was hailed as the sole vicar of Christ on earth, 
the faithful shepherd who had brought the sheep of the 
East and the West into one fold after a separation of 
centuries, and John returned to Constantinople, loaded 
with presents and with abundant promises for the future, 
to be, however, but scantily fulfilled. 

To Isidore, made cardinal and apostolic legate, the ul- 
timate results proved less fortunate. His return to Eus- 
sia was awaited with the keenest impatience and anxie- 
ty, intensified by the pastoral addresses, which, issued 
by him from time to time, had preceded his arrival. 

Finally, in the great cathedral of the Assumption at 
Moscow, before the great prince and an august assembly 
of the highest dignitaries of the Church and the State, 
and, to the profound astonishment of them all, he cele- 
brated mass after the custom of the Latin Church, and 
solemnly proclaimed the act of union. Wonder at the in- 
novation in the service, respect for a decree of a council 
called oecumenical, and for the illustrious names of the 
emperor, the patriarch, and the Greek fathers appended 
to it, held the vast assemblage mute for a space ; but soon 
indignation overcame amazement. Yassili, although a 
weak and vacillating prince, was firmly attached to the 
national belief, and, recovering from his stupefaction, he 
protested indignantly against the sacrifice of his own 



INDEPENDENCE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 37 

and his people's religious birthright. He passionately 
apostrophized the metropolitan as a recreant priest, 
treacherous to his holy trust, a false teacher, and heretic. 

A synod of bishops immediately condemned and disa- 
vowed the action of the council. Isidore was deposed 
and sentenced to confinement ; he escaped from his 
prison to Home, where, by favor of the pope, he en- 
joyed the barren title of Bishop of Kussia, and, at the 
fall of the Byzantine empire, was made patriarch of Con- 
stantinople under the jurisdiction of Rome. 

Gregory, one of Isidore's disciples, and a partisan of 
the union, became metropolitan of Kiev in 1443, by the 
protection of Casimir, King of Poland ; he endeavored, 
unsuccessfully, to extend his sway over the see of Mos- 
cow, and was, with his doctrines, excommunicated by 
the Eussian bishops, who preserved the Muscovite 
Church steadfast in the ancient faith, while Kiev and 
Southern Russia fell under the domination of the pope. 

At Constantinople, although the people and the great 
body of the Church rejected the acts of the council and 
persevered in asserting their independence of papal au- 
thority, the emperor and the patriarch acquiesced in the 
union. As henceforth any Orthodox patriarchal confir- 
mation of a metropolitan in Russia was impossible, 
Jonah of Riazan, who had been elected prior to Isidore's 
appointment, remained, by common consent, in charge 
of the Church, and in 1448 was formally consecrated as 
its head by a synod of bishops. He endeavored in vain 
to bring the Churches of Poland and Lithuania under 
his control, and for his efforts was excommunicated by 
the pope ; despairing of success against the will of the 
Polish king, at that time a more powerful potentate 
than the great prince of Russia, he abandoned the at- 
tempt and relinquished the empty title of Kiev, to as- 



38 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

sunie that of metropolitan of Moscow, by which he and 
his successors were thenceforth designated. 

From this period dates the complete independence of 
the Church of Russia. The necessity of its separation 
from the see of Constantinople was recognized by all 
the Orthodox members of the Greek communion, and 
with them all it continued in close bonds of spiritual 
union. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Church in the Fifteenth Centuiy.— Effect of Tatar Occupation. 
— Liberation of Russia from the Tatars. — Attempted Reforms in 
the Church.— The Orthodox Church in Poland. — Establishment of 
the Patriarchate in Russia. 

The restless spirit of inquiry and enterprise, the pro- 
digious mental activity which, at the end of the fifteenth 
century, had aroused Southern and Western Europe, 
spread into Russia and agitated the stagnant pools of 
Muscovite barbarism and prejudice. Civilization, else- 
where progressing with gigantic strides, was there creep- 
ing onward with slow and sluggish steps, hampered by 
the fatuity and apathy typical of its Oriental origin. 
Belief in the approaching end of the world turned men's 
minds towards the Church. Among the Russian people, 
pre-eminently ignorant and superstitious when ignorance 
and superstition were everywhere characteristics of the 
people, this expectation was generally prevalent, and the 
consequent devotional feeling correspondingly intensi- 
fied. Public churches were multiplied, the rich erected 
private chapels and founded religious establishments ; 
innumerable ecclesiastics were required for their ser- 
vices ; restrictions for admission to the clergy were dis- 
regarded, and its ranks invaded by multitudes from the 
poorest and lowest of the population, seriously debasing 
its morals and lowering its character. 

Among the great events of which this age was prolific, 
the greatest for Russia was its liberation from Tatar 



40 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

tyranny ; national independence followed close upon in- 
dependence of the Church. 

The long period of foreign subjugation was produc- 
tive of many grave and abiding results, and among the 
most noticeable are those affecting the clergy, as a body, 
and the Church. 

The Tatar princes, recognizing the vast influence of 
the Church over the people, afforded it protection in or- 
der to enlist its support in favor of their authority. They 
were also not indifferent to the virtues and self-abnega- 
tion displayed by its members, and treated its bishops 
and dignitaries with respect, accepted their mediation, 
and yielded frequently to their solicitations on behalf of 
the suffering population. These marks of consideration, 
shown by infidel and lawless tyrants, inspired the people 
with increased veneration for their pastors, whom they 
found able to obtain for them protection and redress of 
wrongs. For this reason, apart from the influence of re- 
ligious sentiment, they became more than ever accus- 
tomed to turn to the Church for relief, and to implicitly 
accept its guidance. 

The monasteries and religious bodies, exempted from 
taxation and protected from spoliation, had grown rich 
and prosperous amid the general ruin, and afforded a 
haven, not only to the poor and needy, but also to such 
of the better class as, timid or weary of strife, were glad 
to sacrifice property and escape the responsibilities it en- 
tailed in order to secure safety or a peaceful refuge. 
Many of the rich and noble poured their wealth into the 
coffers of the Church from gratitude for protection, in 
expiation of crimes, or to purchase future happiness. 
Nearly all the great religious institutions of Russia arose 
during this period of the Tatar conquest. 

The position and attitude of the clergy towards the 



EFFECT OF TATAR OCCUPATION. 41 

governing powers were not so much changed as con- 
firmed, in accordance with the submissive spirit of the 
Greek Church, always content to be the coadjutor or 
servant of the civil authority. Recruited in great meas- 
ure from the people, the clergy sympathized profoundly 
with their feelings and sufferings, shared their aspira- 
tions for deliverance from oppression, and was inspired 
by the same ardent affection for the soil, but it was also 
deeply imbued with popular superstitions and prejudices. 
Deprived, under Tatar rule, of all right of interference 
in State affairs, it became devoid of ambition beyond its 
immediate sphere. Seldom, even with its native princes, 
did any of its members attempt to control, although they 
may have endeavored to direct, the civil power and stim- 
ulate it to action. While largely contributing to the 
maintenance of national sentiment, and devoted to the 
welfare of the people, it suffered in its tone and charac- 
ter from the general disorganization of society. The 
destruction of the seats of learning at Kiev and through- 
out the captured and plundered cities of the empire, the 
suppression or interruption of schools and academies 
almost completely annihilated facilities for education. 
With a few exceptions among the higher dignitaries, the 
great body of the clergy were hopelessly ignorant and 
illiterate ; possessing barely the knowledge requisite for 
celebration of the Church service, they conceived religion 
to exist only in the formal routine of ceremonial observ- 
ances. The standard of morality among them was low- 
ered, their character as a body was debased, while their 
numbers were prodigiously increased. 

Ivan III. came to the throne in 1462. He was zealous 
for the protection of religion, ambitious, but prudent and 
politic. He reduced nearly all the principalities and cit- 
ies of Russia to his authority, and laid the foundations 



42 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

of the future greatness of the empire. Sophia, heiress 
of the Byzantine emperors, was his second wife. This 
alliance was favored by Rome in the hope that, educated 
in the Catholic Church, this princess would induce her 
husband to acknowledge the act of union decreed by the 
Council of Florence. The hope was vain; Sophia ab- 
jured the Roman creed and maintained Ivan steadfast 
in the Orthodox faith, while the Russian clergy strenu- 
ously asserted the independence of their Church. 

His authority firmly established within his dominions, 
Ivan aspired to free his country from Tatar vassalage, 
and the whole nation arose at his call. He refused tribute 
to the khan, and summoned the entire forces of the em- 
pire to repel the invasion of Ahkmet. The armies were 
in presence on the banks of the river Oka, called by the 
people " the girdle of the Mother of God." Ivan's throne 
trembled in the balance ; he faltered and feared to risk 
all upon a single battle, but, as in every great crisis of 
Russian history, the Church was strong on the side of 
nationality and independence. The clergy, by the voice 
of its prelates, urged him to combat. Yassian, the aged 
archbishop of Rostov, rebuked his timidity. " Dost thou 
dread death ? Death is the lot of all ; of man, beast, 
and bird alike ; none can avoid it. I am old, borne down 
by weight of years, but give these warriors into my 
hands and I will brave the Tatar sword and never turn 
my back." 

Gerontius, the metropolitan, was no less urgent : " Be 
thine, oh, my son ! the courage and strength of mind 
that belong to a soldier of Christ. A good shepherd 
will die, if needs be, for his flock. May God protect 
thine empire and give thee the victory !" J 

1 Karamsin, vol. vi., p. 183. 



LIBERATION FROM TATARS.— REIGN OF IVAN III. 43 

As Ivan still hesitated, and from his camp continued 
negotiations, Yassian again argued and earnestly be- 
sought him, in "the name of the metropolitan and of us 
all, representatives of Jesus Christ," to march against 
Akhmet, blessing " him and his son and his warriors, 
children of Christ." 

A sudden and extraordinary panic spread through the 
hostile camps, and each fled from before the other, with- 
out striking a blow. The Eussians were the first to 
rally, and Ivan reaped the fruits of the campaign. 

The Tatar power, exhausted and broken by dissen- 
sions among its chiefs, was no longer formidable to the 
empire. 

Victorious in war, Ivan was, in peace, a wise, enlight- 
ened, and magnificent prince. He assumed great state, 
embellished his capital, welcomed at his court scholars 
fleeing from the infidel conquerors of Byzantium, and 
endeavored, in Moscow, to revive the glories of Constan- 
tinople. He extended his favors to all members of the 
Greek communion ; prelates came to the Eussian metro- 
politan for consecration, and the patriarch of Jerusalem 
found refuge in Eussia from the tyranny of the Sultan 
of Egypt. While solicitous for the national faith, he 
was tolerant of other religions. He protected Mahom- 
etans and Jews, and exhibited a leniency, extraordinary 
for the age, towards the dangerous and wide-spread her- 
esy of the Judaizers, which, promulgated in secret, pene- 
trated into high places of both State and Church. 1 

The metropolitan Zosimos, whom Ivan, in the pleni- 
tude of his power, had arbitrarily appointed, was con- 
victed of participation, but was simply deposed and rele- 
gated to a monastery without further punishment. 

1 See p. 183. 



44 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Persecution was forbidden, and the votaries of this 
erratic religious movement were lightly dealt with, until 
their obstinate persistency, after years of forbearance, 
necessitated more rigorous measures of suppression. 

With greater dignity assumed by the monarch came 
increased expenditure and a higher sense of imperial 
authority c Notwithstanding the great services rendered 
by the Church, Ivan, like his contemporary Louis XL 
of France, became jealous of its power and envious of 
its enormous wealth. He attempted to sequestrate its 
landed property, and to render it more subservient to 
his will ; but the determined opposition he encountered 
was too powerful, and a council confirmed its ancient 
grants and privileges. Simon, the successor of Zosimos, 
sturdily maintained its rights, and at the same time care- 
fully watched over its discipline and the habits of the 
clergy. The monasteries for men were separated from 
those for women ; priests and deacons who had lost their 
wives were prohibited from officiating at mass ; simony, 
corruption, and irregularities of all kinds were severely 
punished, and every effort made to purify the morals 
and elevate the tone and character of the clerical pro- 
fession. 

During this period of consolidation in Eussia the 
Church in Lithuania and Poland was exposed to trial 
and suffering. After the death of the Uniate metropol- 
itan Gregory, its bishops repudiated the decrees of the 
Council of Florence, refused to acknowledge their de- 
pendence on the pope, and insisted upon the consecration 
of their metropolitans by the patriarch of Constantinople. 
The rulers of the country, on the contrary, professed the 
Koman creed, and subjected their Orthodox population 
to annoyance and persecution. When Ivan married his 
daughter Helena to Alexander of Lithuania, he carefully 



PERSECUTION IN POLAND.-GROWTII OF MOSCOW. 45 

stipulated for freedom in the exercise of her religion, and 
earnestly exhorted her to be steadfast herself, and to be 
constant in her efforts for the protection of others of 
their faith. This family alliance was insufficient to pre- 
vent dissensions between neighboring princes, each grasp- 
ing and ambitious, and with religious antagonism to whet 
suspicion and create irritation. Helena's influence was 
often, although ineffectually, exerted to alleviate the op- 
pression to which the Orthodox were exposed, but her 
husband was under pressure from the papal element, 
which also had his sympathy, and Helena herself was 
made to feel it. Joseph Saltan, promoted to the see of 
Kiev, became, in gratitude for his elevation, a convert to 
the prince's views, and joined in his efforts to crush 
Orthodoxy and strengthen Eomanism. Helena discreet- 
ly concealed her ow T n vexations, but the cry of the peo- 
ple reached her father's ears and aroused his indignation. 
Political relations between Lithuania and Eussia were 
always strained, war was constantly breaking out or im- 
minent, and in such conditions the state of the Orthodox 
Polish Church was melancholy and distressing. 

Under Ivan's son, Yassili IY., the Church in Eussia 
enjoyed a long season of tranquillity; the missionary 
spirit was strong within it, and it sent forth priests to 
Christianize and colonize through Lapland to the shores 
of the Northern seas. 

The glory of Moscow, as a centre of learning, the seat 
of the mightiest prince and most potent prelate of the 
Orthodox Church, attracted thither monks and emissa- 
ries from the convents and holy places of the East in 
quest of alms and succor. Vast collections of religious 
manuscripts and books had been accumulated in former 
reigns, and more recently by Sophia. Yassili sent to Con- 
stantinople for theologians of competent erudition for 



46 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

their examination and study. The patriarch selected 
for the purpose Maximus, a Greek monk of Mt. Athos, 
distinguished for learning, piety, and ability. He applied 
himself assiduously to the task, discovered and corrected 
many errors which had crept into the Church books by 
the negligence of transcribers, and, by his emendations, 
restored the ritual in its original purity. His virtues, 
the wisdom of his counsels, his unaffected piety and re- 
ligious zeal, greatly endeared him to the prince. Not- 
withstanding his frequent requests, now that his labors 
were ended, for permission to return to his convent 
home, Yassili would not consent, but retained him near 
his person. 

In 1519 Pope Leo X. urged the Eussian monarch to 
unite with the Christian princes of Europe, for the glory 
of God, against the Turks. He suggested that Constan- 
tinople was his legitimate inheritance as son of a Greek 
princess. He further offered to raise the see of Moscow 
to a patriarchate, preserving all the "allowable" prac- 
tices of the Eastern Church, thus speciously disguising, 
while asserting, his assumption of jurisdiction. Yassili, 
however, mindful of the Te Deums celebrated by Leo for 
the great victory of the Lithuanians over the " heretic " 
Russians at Orscha, declined his advances, and refused 
others of a similar nature from Clement VII. 

Yassili' s attachment to the national religion was sin- 
cere, but he was impatient of clerical dictation. He forced 
Barlaam, for his uncompromising austerity, to retire 
from the primacy, and raised Daniel to his place. The 
new metropolitan was a man of elastic principles, of nar- 
row, selfish views, unscrupulous, complaisant, devoured 
by ambition and by jealousy of Maximus, a foreigner. 

In common with most of the clergy, Daniel was fanat- 
ically attached to the ancient ceremonies of the Church 



REIGN OF VASSILI IV.-CLEKICAL INTRIGUES. 47 

ritual, and opposed to reforms. To strengthen his posi- 
tion and ingratiate himself with the prince, Daniel au- 
thorized Vassili's divorce from his wife Salomina, on the 
plea of her sterility, and celebrated his marriage with 
Helena. On this matter Vassili had set his heart, but for 
a long time in vain, as it was contrary to ecclesiastical 
canon. It is related that, by Daniel's advice, Yassili con- 
sulted the Eastern patriarchs, and Mark of Jerusalem 
replied by a prediction terribly fulfilled in the succeed- 
ing reign — 

" Shouldst thou contract a second marriage thou shalt 
have a. wicked son ; thy states shall become a prey to 
terror and to tears ; rivers of blood shall flow ; the heads 
of thy mighty ones shall fall; thy cities shall be de- 
voured by flames." 

Maximus agreed with the other prelates in condemn- 
ing the proceedings, and Daniel seized upon the occasion 
to accomplish his ruin. Vassili's affection was turned to 
hatred, and, deprived of this support, Maximus was sum- 
moned before a council, convicted of heresy and sacrilege 
for tampering with the Sacred Books, and sentenced to 
reclusion. Daniel's triumph was of short duration ; dur- 
ing the infancy of Vassili's son Ivan this scheming prelate 
and his successor were actively engaged in court intrigues 
and conspiracies, and both suffered from the vicissitudes 
of the struggle between rival factions ; one was forced 
to abdicate, and the other was banished. The primacy 
was in the gift of the party in power, and the selection 
of the incumbent was of grave importance from the in- 
fluence he might exercise over the young prince, to 
whom, by virtue of his functions, he had free access, and 
from his authority as head of the Church. Macarius, 
archbishop of Novgorod, an ambitious man, but of recog- 
nized piety and ability, was chosen in 1542. 



48 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Ivan I Y. was ' an infant when his father died ; his 
youth was turbulent and riotous ; gifted by nature with 
great talents and force of character, with lofty aspira- 
tions, but strong and ungovernable passions, with untir- 
ing energy and unbounded confidence, his education was 
purposely neglected by his guardians, who, while intrigu- 
ing and disputing among themselves for power, each in 
turn, in order to strengthen and prolong their authority, 
gratified his caprices, encouraged his excesses, pandered 
to his vicious propensities, sedulously fostered his harsh 
and tyrannical disposition, and, by adulation and flat- 
tery, imbued his mind with the conviction that as Tsar 
he could do no wrong. In early life he gave evidence 
of his impatience of control and of his cruel nature. 
When but thirteen years of age he joined in the over- 
throw of the ruling faction, viewed with complacency 
the torture and death of its chief, whose body he ordered 
to be thrown to his dogs to be devoured. At seventeen 
years of age, in 1547, he assumed sovereign authority, 
and was crowned as Tsar. This title, derived from the 
Hebrew, borne by Chaldean kings of Biblical history and 
by Greek emperors, sometimes adopted by his father and 
grandfather, was henceforth to be the designation of the 
monarchs of Russia. He married Anastasia Romanoff, 
a native princess of great beauty, rare intelligence, and 
piety. 

By a singular contradiction, Ivan, in his wildest ex- 
cesses, always exhibited extraordinary regard for devo- 
tional observances, scrupulous adherence to religious 
ceremonial, and superstitious reverence for the Church. 

In the year following his marriage Moscow was de- 
stroyed by a furious conflagration ; popular insurrections 
broke out, and general anarchy threatened the stability 
of the government. At this juncture, when Ivan was 



IVAN IV., HIS EXCESSES AND REFORMATION. 49 

terrified and dismayed by these calamities, Sylvester, a 
monk of Novgorod, revered for his sanctity and holy 
life, appeared before him, and, like a prophet of old, 
boldly rebuked his shameful excesses and cruelty, de- 
clared the ruin of Moscow to be the sign of divine wrath, 
invoked upon him the vengeance of the Almighty if he 
did not turn from his wickedness, and exhorted him to 
give heed to the Gospel injunctions if he would escape 
from the hand of God and live. Ivan was moved to 
tears, and promised amendment. Among his compan- 
ions was Alexis Adaschef, a youth of great personal at- 
tractions, of pure and elevated character, and signal abil- 
ity, who valued royal favor only as a means for noble 
ends, and who joined Sylvester in his efforts to reclaim 
the prince. Henceforth the influence of these virtuous, 
patriotic men was paramount, and, guided by them, Ivan, 
with characteristic energy, summoned the bishops of the 
Church, made public confession of his faults, and be- 
sought the metropolitan to aid his youth and inexpe- 
rience. 

Success to his arms abroad and prosperity within his 
realm followed the wise and prudent administration of 
his new counsellors. The civil laws were reduced to a 
code in 1550, and the year following an assembly, known 
as that of " the Hundred Chapters," from the number of 
its decisions, was convened to confirm the legal code and 
to take into consideration all matters pertaining to cler- 
ical discipline and reform. It was opened by Ivan in 
person, who appealed to the fathers present to " enlighten 
and instruct him in all godliness," not to spare his weak- 
ness, but to " rebuke his errors without fear ;" "so shall 
my soul live and the souls of all my people." 

From the scanty records of this council it would seem 
to have undertaken a thorough reform of the Church 



50 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

and of the ritual, but its action was incomplete and most 
unfortunate. Many superstitious practices were pre- 
served, and the alterations of the Church books were 
superficial and incorrect. Errors, allowed to stand, re- 
ceived thereby additional confirmation, and were more 
widely disseminated by the introduction of printing. 

Meanwhile Russian arms were everywhere victorious. 
Kasan and Astracan were subdued, the Golden Horde 
crushed, and the dominion of the Church was extended 
over the conquests of the State. Ivan, yet faithful to his 
virtuous resolves, loved by his people, feared by his ene- 
mies, realized a crowning happiness in the birth of a son. 

A change was imminent, terrible as it was unexpected. 
During a serious illness of the tsar intrigues and disputes 
regarding the succession filled his soul with doubts of 
the loyalty of his most faithful friends. His mind, un- 
hinged by sickness, was painfully affected by the sud- 
den death of his child and of his beloved wife, and per- 
fidious counsels fostered suspicions, to which his dark 
and sombre disposition was prone. He sought advice 
from a former favorite of his father, Yassian, ex-bishop 
of Kolomna, who had been deprived of his diocese for 
crime. This old man, whose heart was filled with gall 
and envy, whispered suggestions which found ready re- 
sponse in Ivan's diseased fancies. 

" If," said he, " you wish to be absolute monarch, have 
no confidant wiser than yourself ; give orders, but receive 
advice from no one ; always command and never follow 
the lead of others ; thus you will be indeed a king, ter- 
rible to your lords. Remember, above all, that a coun- 
sellor, even of the wisest prince, inevitably becomes his 
master." ' 

1 Karamsin, vol. viii. , p. 234. 



IVAN IV., RELAPSE; CRUELTY.— RUSSIAN LOYALTY. 51 

The poisonous seed bore fatal fruit. Ivan, then but 
thirty years of age, seemed to lose all faith in mankind. 
He surrounded himself with sycophants and parasites, 
and plunged anew into the wild excesses of his youth ; 
he pursued his former friends with relentless cruelty, ar- 
raigned and condemned Adaschef and Sylvester for trea- 
son. His tyranny grew with its indulgence ; every one 
became an object of suspicion ; prisons were filled with 
victims ; blood ran like water ; no head was too high, no 
character too pure, for attack. The natural ferocity of 
his disposition broke through all restraints, and he seemed 
to be possessed by a wild, insane fury to torture, slay, 
and destroy ; yet, with strange inconsistency, making pro- 
fession of earnest devotion all the while, constantly hum- 
bling himself before the altar, and, cleansed of past enor- 
mities, going forth with fresh thirst for blood. 

Anastasius succeeded Macarius, but, terrified at the 
atrocities committed by the tsar, and at his impatience 
of all remonstrance, he soon retired to a monastery. 

Ivan, apprehensive of the possible consequences of his 
cruelty and oppression, removed with his court to Alex- 
androv ; his people, in consternation at his departure from 
Moscow, implored him to return, and he } T ielded to their 
solicitations only upon condition of absolute submission 
to his will. This they promised, and their obedience 
never faltered through a long reign distinguished in all 
history for its unspeakable horrors. 

" He who blasphemes his Maker will meet with for- 
giveness among men, but he who reviles the Tsar will 
surely lose his head," is a Russian saying, and loyalty 
was a principle of religion ingrained in the Russian soul. 
A nobleman impaled by Ivan, for some trivial offence, 
while languishing in agony, constantly repeated, " Great 
God, protect the Tsar !" " Neither tortures nor dishon- 



52 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

or," writes a chronicler of the times, " could shake their 
devotion to the sovereign." 

On returning to the capital, Ivan, in a wild caprice, 
established the " Opritchnina," - and divided the empire 
into the so-called "personality" and " communality ;" 
the one to be his individual property, under his personal 
rule, and the other to be governed by the boyars and. or- 
dinary officers of the State. He formed a body-guard 
called the " Opritchniki," or Legion of the Elect, chosen 
for their debauched and lawless habits, and sworn to 
obey him only, and in all things, ignoring all other au- 
thority. With them he gave free vent to his fiendish 
passions and diabolic cruelty. City and country, noble 
and peasant, were alike subjected to pillage, extortion, 
and torture. At Alexandrov he established a chapel and 
monastery, where he and his familiars, in the garb of 
monks, officiated and assiduously followed the strictest 
rule of monastic life. He spent hours in prayer and 
self-flagellation, as if to quiet remorse, and then, unable 
to control his thirst for blood, he passed from the fa- 
tiguing and exhausting service of the altar to rest and 
refresh himself by superintending the rack. Yain of his 
theological acquirements and devotional practices, he 
was wont to vary his occupation as torturer and execu- 
tioner by admonishing the clergy to be faithful, and to 
take pattern from him in the discharge of their duties. 

Before the Church fell into ignominious subserviency 
a martyr was added to its list of saints. When Atha- 
nasius retired, Germanus refused the primacy and re- 
buked the tsar for his crimes. Philip, a monk of noble 
birth, distinguished for piety and learning, was sum- 

1 Opritchnina, or opritchina, is an old Russian word, now obsolete, 
meaning privilege ; opritchniki, the persons who are " privileged." 



THE 0PRITCHNINA.— MARTYRDOM OF PHILIP. 53 

moned from the distant monastery of Solovetsk. Mind- 
ful of the grave responsibilities and duties of the high 
office offered him, he declined its acceptance unless the 
tsar would abolish the Opritclmina and restore the unity 
of the empire. Finally, hoping to mitigate the evils of 
this institution, if he could not obtain its suppression, 
he yielded to the solicitations of the people. 

Ivan's diseased imagination saw conspiracy and rebel- 
lion threatening his throne, and, to strike his enemies 
with terror, he redoubled his persecutions. Philip, by 
his constant exhortations to mercy and amendment, be- 
came odious to the tyrant, who at times seemed pos- 
sessed by an insane fancy to mock the Church which 
generally he so much feared. He presented himself, on 
one occasion, dressed in strange attire, accompanied by a 
band of his Opritchniki, before the primate at the altar, 
to receive his blessing. Philip took no notice of his 
presence, but when the boyars announced to him that 
the tsar was before him, he replied, " I do not recognize 
the tsar in any such dress ; I do not recognize the tsar 
in his acts. What is this that thou hast done, O tsar ! 
to put off from thee the form of thine honor ? Fear the 
judgment of God. Here we are offering up the blood- 
less sacrifice to the Lord, while behind the altar there is 
flowing the innocent blood of Christian men." Ivan, 
furious, tried to stop his lips with menaces. "I am a 
stranger and a pilgrim upon earth," was the reply, " as 
all my fathers were, and I am ready to suffer for the 
truth. Where would my faith be if I kept silence." 

Ivan was awed, but greedily listened to accusations of 
seditious intrigues brought against Philip, and a packed 
tribunal of venal prelates condemned him. He calmly 
submitted and resigned the insignia of his office, but was 
ordered to officiate again at a solemn festival. When on 



54 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the steps of the altar, arrayed in his pontifical robes, a 
troop of armed men invaded the sanctuary ; their leader 
proclaimed the primate's deposition, and the soldiers, 
with blows and insult, tore the sacred vestments from 
his back and dragged him to prison. Philip exulted in 
being permitted to suffer for the truth, and, turning on 
the steps of the Church, he gave his blessing to the 
horror-struck worshippers, with the single admonition, 
" Pray." * Transferred to the Otroch monastery, he was 
strangled in his cell by the tsar's command, and died a 
martyr ; to the honor of Russian monarchs, be it said, 
the only one the annals of the Church record. 

After the death of Philip, weak and pusillanimous 
prelates, humbly submissive to the tyrant's will, occu- 
pied the metropolitan throne, and all attempts to check 
the tsar's excesses ceased. The Church sanctioned his 
frequent marriages, in scandalous violation of ecclesias- 
tical canons, and, unable to protect even its own mem- 
bers, was a silent witness to scenes of atrocious cruelty 
and unbridled license. An imaginary conspiracy was 
Ivan's pretext for the destruction of Novgorod, still 
boasting the name of " Great," but sadly fallen from its 
ancient high estate. The unhappy city was given over 
to sack and pillage ; churches and monasteries were sac- 
rilegiously plundered ; the miserable inhabitants led forth 
by thousands to be broken on the wheel, boiled in oil, 
sawn between planks, or flayed alive, while Ivan looked 
gleefully on, racking his hellish ingenuity to devise new 
tortures. Pskov was saved from a similar fate by the 
bold interposition of a religious fanatic named Nicholas, 
who, feigning insanity, dared upbraid the savage tyrant, 
and so aroused his superstitious fears that he left the 

1 Mouravief, pp. 116, 117. 



ROME'S ATTEMPTS AT UNION OF THE CHURCHES. 55 

city in peace. It is related that he offered Ivan raw 
meat, and, it being Lent, the tsar replied, "lama Chris- 
tian, and eat no meat in Lent." " Thou doest worse," 
was the hermit's rejoinder; thou feedest upon human 
flesh and blood, forgetting, not Lent indeed, but Christ 
Himself." 

Notwithstanding the subserviency of the clergy, its 
patriotic spirit was not extinct. In 1580, when Russia 
was sore beset on every side, a council assembled at 
Moscow eagerly responded to the monarch's call for aid, 
and relinquished to the crown all the landed estates 
which the Church had acquired by gift or purchase from 
the princes of Moscow. At this critical juncture Ivan's 
wonted energy deserted him. Hidden from his people 
in the gloomy retreat of Alexandrov, he revelled and ca- 
roused with his favorites, giving his son in marriage and 
espousing his seventh wife, while defeat and disaster 
overwhelmed the empire. He was compelled to humble 
himself before the Polish king and sue for peace. 

The pope Gregory XIII. deemed the opportunity pro- 
pitious for renewing the oft-repeated attempt at union 
of the Churches, and, in 1581, despatched to Moscow An- 
thony Poissevin, a Jesuit of wily and insinuating man- 
ners, of great diplomatic skill, to act in his name as me- 
diator between the combatants. Although the vast re- 
sources of Russia were far from being exhausted, Poisse- 
vin, adroitly playing upon the pusillanimous fears of the 
tsar, induced him to conclude an armistice upon disad- 
vantageous terms, and Livonia was lost to Russia, after 
nearly six centuries of possession. During the negotia- 
tions with Stephen Batory, King of Poland, the tsare- 
vitch Ivan, w T ho, though educated in vice, inherited the 
manliness of his father's youth, indignant at the national 
humiliation, begged permission to lead an army against 



56 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the enemy; but the jealous tyrant, in a fit of frenzy, 
suspicious of treachery even in his own son, felled him 
by a fatal blow from his iron staff. 

Poissevin, relying on his success in securing the peace 
which Ivan desired, proceeded to Moscow to develop the 
future plans of Rome. In return for the services he had 
rendered he urged the tsar to recognize the fusion of the 
Churches promulgated by the Council of Florence, to en- 
ter into an alliance with the other European powers, and 
thus array the whole Christian world in a crusade against 
the Turks. He eloquently discoursed on the glorious op- 
portunity of restoring unity to the universal Church, not, 
he claimed, by abjuring the Greek religion, but by pre- 
serving it in its ancient purity, as established by the early 
Councils, as decreed at Florence, recognized by the Greek 
emperor, the patriarch, the clergy of Constantinople, and 
by Isidore, the former illustrious head of the Eussian 
Church. He adroitly insinuated the prospect of recov- 
ering Kiev, the ancient patrimony of the race of Ruric, 
and of grasping the sceptre of the Byzantine Empire. 
His arguments fell on a listless and unwilling ear. Ivan, 
consumed by remorse at the murder of his son, his anxi- 
ety about foreign invasion allayed, his youthful energy 
dulled by excesses and indulgence, felt no kindling am- 
bition for a shadowy empire in the East. He ridiculed 
the Orthodoxy of Western Christians, who shaved their 
beards, and the pretensions of the pope to sit on a throne 
above kings, and give them his toe to kiss. " We earthly 
sovereigns," said he, " alone wear crowns. The heir of 
the apostles should be meek and lowly in spirit. We 
reverence our metropolitan, and crave his blessing, but 
he walks humbly on earth, and seeks not, in pride, to 
raise himself above princes. There is but one Holy Fa- 
ther, and He is in heaven; whoso calleth himself the 



DEATH OF IVAN IV.; HIS SUCCESSOR FEODOR I. 57 

companion of Jesus Christ, but is carried on men's shoul- 
ders, as if borne up on a cloud by angels, is no true shep- 
herd, but a wolf in sheep's clothing." ' 

Poissevin's persistence and eloquence were exerted to 
no purpose ; the utmost concession he could obtain was 
that Catholics, like other heretics, might dwell in Russia 
without molestation on the score of religion, but the erec- 
tion of Latin churches and the propagation of their faith 
were prohibited. 

The erudite Dionysius, surnamed " Grammaticus " for 
his learning, had, during the last years of this reign, by 
his prudence, virtues, and energy, somewhat restored the 
dignity of the metropolitan see. 

Worn out before his time by the warring of his fierce 
passions, alternating with fits of remorse and repentance, 
Ivan, in his latter days, turned again to the Church for 
relief; he showered rich alms on the holy convents of 
Sinai and Athos, exhorted his youthful son and heir to 
rule with mercy and charity for his subjects, and, receiv- 
ing tonsure from the priest's hands, the " Terrible" Tsar 
yielded up his soul as the simple monk Jonah. 

" He had passed over the land of Russia," says a great 
poet, "like a blast of divine wrath," and now, on the 
throne of this " scourge of God," sat a gentle and pious 
youth, who seemed lost in the gloomy precincts of the 
Kremlin, a wandering monk who had strayed from his 
monastery. 

Feodor (Theodore) I. was small in stature, weak in 
health and intellect ; he joined to extreme mildness of 
disposition a timid spirit, excessive piety, and a profound 
indifference for this world's affairs ; he passed his days 
in listening to pious legends, singing hymns with monks, 

1 Karamsin, vol. ix., p. 4G0. 



58 TH E RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

and his greatest pleasure was to ring the convent bells 
and share in the services of the Church ; " He is a sacris- 
tan," said his father, " and no tsarevitch." 

Yielding in character, and fondly attached to his wife, 
Irene, he reposed implicit confidence and trust in her 
brother, Boris Godounov, who, during the entire reign, 
wielded the supreme authority in the young tsar's name. 

Godounov, by his energy and ability, restored strength 
to the crown and prosperity to the State. Looking for- 
ward with far-sighted and patient ambition, he saw the 
sceptre within his grasp. So important an element, in 
his calculations, as the clergy, was not neglected ; Dio- 
nysius, the metropolitan, penetrated the secret of his 
treacherous designs, and, anxious regarding the succes- 
sion, as Irene was childless, he instigated a petition, not- 
withstanding its uncanonical object, to the tsar for his 
divorce. His machinations resulted in his ruin ; he was 
deposed, and confined in the convent of Khoutinsk. Go- 
dounov was all-powerful, and by his influence Job, arch- 
bishop of Eostov, was installed as primate. 

The Kussian Church was still nominally under the ec- 
clesiastical jurisdiction of the patriarchal see of Constan- 
tinople, but the Eastern Church had fallen to a state of 
lamentable decrepitude and degradation/ The patriarch, 
although elected by a synod, was dependent on the Turk- 
ish emperor for confirmation, which was to be obtained 
only by intrigue and bribery ; the ambition of Eastern 
prelates to wield the pastoral staff was a never-failing 
source of revenue to the sultan and his favorites. Each 
incumbent was in turn the victim of the jealousy of his 
competitors, and scarcely had he mounted the slippery 
steps of the throne ere he was removed to make place 
for a rival more fortunate from influence at court or with 
a heavier purse to support his pretensions. 






DEGRADATION OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 59 

During the century subsequent to the fall of Constan- 
tinople suffering and martyrdom were the general lot of 
the successors of St. Chrysostom, but it was suffering 
without good for the Church, and martyrdom without 
dignity. Their procession is a melancholy one ; Joasaph 
Cocas, persecuted by his clergy, attempted, in despair, to 
drown himself in a well ; rescued, and reseated on the 
throne, he was driven into exile by the sultan; Mark 
Xylocarabceus was exiled ; Simeon paid a thousand gold 
florins for his seat, and was thrown into a monastery ; 
Dionysius had the same fate; Raphael, to secure his 
nomination, doubled the tribute hitherto exacted ; una- 
ble to pay the sum promised, he was thrust forth, loaded 
with chains, to beg by the roadside, and died in misery ; 
Nyphon had his nose cut off, and was forced into exile ; 
Joachim raised the tribute to three thousand ducats, was 
exiled, recalled, and again exiled ; Pacome was poisoned ; 
Jeremiah I. started on a pastoral tour, his vicar deserted 
him on the way, hurried back, bribed the vizier, and 
usurped the see ; he was driven away by a popular out- 
break, and Jeremiah's friends purchased for him permis- 
sion to resume his seat ; Joasaph II. again raised the trib- 
ute, was deposed and excommunicated by his clergy for 
simony ; Gregory was cast into the sea ; Cyril Lucar was 
exiled and strangled ; Methrophanes, accused of simony, 
was induced to resign by the offer of two dioceses ; he 
sold the one and administered the other ; Jeremiah II., 
bishop of Larissa, was elected and confirmed in 1572 ; 
his funds were exhausted by the tribute, then fixed at 
ten thousand florins, and he piteously complained, in his 
correspondence, that he dared not undertake a pastoral 
tour to replenish his treasury from the alms of the faith- 
ful for fear that, in his absence, some ambitious brother 
might seize upon the throne. The danger was real ; Me- 



60 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

throphanes reappeared, and reasserted his claims to the 
patriarchate ; as his purse was the longer, he was rein- 
stated on appeal to the sultan. At his death Jeremiah 
again enjoyed a brief spell of power, but, accused of con- 
spiracy against the government, he was imprisoned, then 
exiled to Rhodes. Theoptus, his accuser, seized the va- 
cant seat, disputed, also, by Pacome, a monk of Lesbos, 
and, by the opportune payment of a double tribute, se- 
cured the imperial confirmation ; imprudently he vent- 
ured on a pastoral visit to "Walachia, and in his absence 
Jeremiah's friends purchased his pardon, and reseated 
him on the throne. 1 

The dilapidation of the finances of the patriarchate, 
the ruin threatening the whole fabric, and the exhaus- 
tion of all parties, brought about perforce a general rec- 
onciliation, and Jeremiah was left in undisputed posses- 
sion. A common effort was made to heal the wounds of 
the unhappy and suffering Church ; missions were de- 
spatched to various countries in search of succor and 
alms, and Jeremiah himself, for the same purpose, un- 
dertook a journey to Russia, the wealthiest and most 
powerful member of the Orthodox communion. His ar- 
rival was happily timed for the designs of the ambitious 
Boris. 

Under his influence the pious Feodor had eagerly 
seized upon the idea of freeing the national Church from 
all dependence, however slight, upon foreign jurisdic- 
tion. Probably to prepare the way for this step, early 
in his reign he sent an embassy to the sultan, and charged 
his envoy with rich gifts for the patriarch and kindly 
assurances of good- will towards the Church. In 1586 
Joachim of Antioch appeared in Russia in quest of 

1 De Vogtttf, Revue des Deux Mondes, Mars, 1879. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF RUSSIAN PATRIARCHATE, 61 

alms, and, during his visit, Feodor announced to his coun- 
cil and clergy his intention to elevate the see of Mos- 
cow to the rank of patriarchate. They approved of his 
project, but urged that the assent of the whole East- 
ern Church be first obtained, in order to forestall any 
reproach from schismatics or heretics, that the change 
was due to a merely arbitrary act of the tsar. Joachim, 
while favoring Feodor's plan, concurred in the wisdom 
of delay, and, abundantly rewarded for his compliance, 
took his departure for the East, promising to press the 
matter upon his brother patriarchs. A year or more 
passed ; the oecumenical fathers delayed, their answer ; 
doubtless the proposition met with little favor in their 
eyes ; they feared to affront a powerful friend, yet, un- 
willing to assent, sought refuge in procrastination. 

At this juncture Jeremiah arrived at Moscow, and was 
welcomed with all the honors that a pious monarch could 
render to one of his exalted rank. Touched with grati- 
tude at his reception, he expressed his approval of the 
tsar's desire to institute a Kussian patriarchate. To his 
surprise, Godounov, by the tsar's orders, proposed to 
him that he should abandon his poverty-stricken capital 
on the shores of the Bosphorus, escape from humiliating 
subjection to the infidel Turk, and assume charge of the 
newly-established primacy over rich, powerful, Orthodox 
Russia. Jeremiah, dazzled by the brilliant prospect, wil- 
lingly assented, but it formed no part of the plans of the 
astute Godounov that a stranger should occupy in Russia 
so exalted a station. While laboring for the aggrandize- 
ment of the national Church, he intended that it should 
also serve his ambitious ends, and reserved the primacy 
for a friend and partisan upon whose support he could 
rely. At his suggestion the tsar intimated his intention 
to fix the residence of the new primate at Vladimir, 



62 THE RUSSIAN CHUECH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

which city was, after Kiev, the ancient ecclesiastical cap- 
ital of the empire. Jeremiah demurred, and insisted that 
Moscow was the only proper abode of the head of the 
Church. He appealed to former precedents in the 
East, and claimed it to be his province to be near the 
sovereign. This was inadmissible; the presence of a 
foreigner at court in such intimate relations with the 
tsar would shock national prejudices; the necessity of 
an interpreter between the sovereign and the prelate 
would bring a third — possibly an indiscreet — person into 
secrets of state or religious polity. Moreover, it would 
entail the forced retirement of Job, who was still the 
actual head of the Church, a sorry reward for years of 
zealous and faithful service. 

During the negotiations which ensued the wily Greek 
soon perceived that he was but a tool in the hands of the 
unscrupulous Godounov. He began, also, to weary of the 
strange, and, to him, savage habits and customs of the 
country ; waxing old and feeble, he became apprehen- 
sive, and sighed to return to milder climes and scenes to 
which he had been accustomed. When, therefore, the 
alternative was placed before him of a residence at Yla- 
dimir or the appointment of a native prelate to fill the 
patriarchal throne, he chose the latter. 

A synod of all the Eussian bishops was solemnly 
convoked at Moscow for the election, the result of 
which was a foregone conclusion; three names were 
submitted to the tsar, and he selected the first on the 
list, that of Job, the metropolitan, the friend and faith- 
ful adherent of Godounov. Jeremiah, whose expecta- 
tions had been raised only to be disappointed, now ear- 
nestly craved permission to depart, although with his 
desire to escape from Eussia were mingled grave appre- 
hensions of the reception that might await him at Con- 



ESTABLISHMENT OF RUSSIAN PATRIARCHATE. G3 

stantinople for his complicity with these serious changes 
in the constitution of the Church. His presence at Mos- 
cow was, however, yet necessary to add to the dignity 
and sacredness of the event, and he was detained, sorely 
against his will, to officiate at the ceremony of installa- 
tion. As the elder and first of the pastors of the Eastern 
Church, he solemnly imposed hands and blessed Job as 
" Chief of Bishops, Father of Fathers, and Patriarch of 
all the Countries to the North, by the grace of God and 
the will of the Tsar." 

A formal record of the proceedings was subscribed to 
by the tsar, with the great seal of the State, by all the Bus- 
sian bishops and dignitaries present, by Jeremiah and 
the Greek prelates who accompanied him. It was there- 
in set forth that ancient Borne had fallen into heresy, 
and the Western Church was polluted by false doctrines ; 
that new Borne was in the hands of the infidel Turk, 
and henceforth a third Eome had arisen at Moscow; 
that the first oecumenical prelate of the Church was the 
patriarch of Constantinople, the second the patriarch of 
Alexandria, the third the patriarch of Moscow, the fourth 
the patriarch of Antioch, the fifth the patriarch of Jeru- 
salem. It was further declared that the patriarch of 
Moscow should be elected and consecrated by the clergy 
of Russia, without any necessity of reference to other 
authorities of the Greek Church. 

In order to complete the hierarchy of the Eussian es- 
tablishment four metropolitan sees were instituted — at 
Novgorod, Kasan, Eostov, and Kroutitsk — and six arch- 
bishops, with eight bishops, were added to the ranks of 
the clergy. 

The reorganization of the Church thus completed, Jer- 
emiah, loaded with presents, was dismissed, with all pos- 
sible honors, in the spring of 1589. 



64 THE EUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

His apprehensions of an unfriendly reception at the 
hands of the vain and intolerant clergy of the East, hos- 
tile to any intrenchment upon the shadowy dignity of 
their position, were fully realized, and he found it by no 
means an easy task to reconcile his brother patriarchs of 
Asia and Africa to the proceedings authorized by him. 
His own companions disavowed his acts, regardless of 
their signature to the record at Moscow, but, after much 
mutual recrimination, the Oriental fathers acquiesced in 
the inevitable, and signified their assent to what they 
could not have prevented and could not now undo, stip- 
ulating, however, with clerical jealousy of rank, that the 
Russian patriarchate should, as the youngest, be fifth in 
order of precedence instead of third, and that its incum- 
bent should seek investiture at Constantinople. 

These conditions were never enforced, and within a 
century were formally abolished. 



CHAPTER V. 

Boris Godouuov.— The Church in Poland. — Peter Mogila. — Liberation 
of Russia from the Poles.— Philaret.— Alexis.— Nikon and his Re- 
forms.— Dissent. 

Boris Godounov was now at the height of his power, 
screened by the arm of the Church and strong in his 
sovereign's affection. Dimitri, last heir to the throne, 
was secretly assassinated by his orders, and Feodor's 
daughter died in infancy. All obstacles thus removed, 
he waited patiently for the feeble tsar's death to seize 
upon the crown. 

A successful campaign against the Crimean Tatars add- 
ed the glory of a warrior to his fame as administrator. 
He drove the invaders from the walls of Moscow, while 
the monkish prince prostrated himself before the altar 
with sublime confidence in the efficacy of prayer. " Have 
no fears," he prophesied to the aged men and weeping 
women who remained within the beleaguered city, "to- 
morrow not a Tatar shall be in sight." ' 

The singular piety of the monarch greatly endeared 
him to his devout and superstitious people. He lost all 
chance of election to the throne of Poland by his un- 
swerving Orthodoxy, and declined the pope's proposals 
for union of the Churches in a general crusade against 
the Turks. 

Under his fostering care the Church increased enor- 
mously in wealth and influence. Moscow became a 

1 Karamsin, vol. x., p. 206. 



66 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

" holy city ;" there were four hundred religious edifices 
within its walls, and thirty-four within the precincts of 
the Kremlin. 

At his death, in 1598, Irene, in furtherance of her 
brother's ambition, retired to a convent. Feodor left no 
direct heir; Boris was the choice of the nation, and a 
general assembly summoned him to the throne. After 
repeated refusals, with great apparent reluctance, and 
pretending to yield only to threats of excommunication 
by the Church, he assented to the popular wish and was 
crowned tsar. 

During these events in Russia the Polish Church 
had passed through trying vicissitudes. About 1520 
Jonah II., an Orthodox prelate, had succeeded Joseph 
Saltan as metropolitan of Kiev. He and his successors 
were zealous defenders of the Orthodox faith against the 
encroachments of the kings of Poland. Liberty of re- 
ligious worship was allowed, and the independence of the 
Church was recognized in principle, but severe pressure 
was exerted upon the nobles who professed the Greek 
faith. Their social and political privileges were serious- 
ly curtailed ; they could not occupy any of the higher 
offices of state, nor sit as senators in the national diet. 

When Sigismund, of Sweden, was elected king, in 1587, 
his zeal for the Catholic Church led to more systematic 
and persistent persecution of members of the Orthodox 
communion. Their fidelity to their creed was under- 
mined by appeals to their interests and ambition, and 
many of the clergy, as well as of the nobles, became 
lukewarm and indifferent to the fortunes of their 
Church. 

The Jesuit Poissevin had not forgotten his ill success 
at the Muscovite court, and, during the reign of Ste- 
phen Batory, he had urged upon Pope Gregory XIII. 



THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN POLAND. (ft 

the policy of weakening the stronghold of Orthodoxy 
by attacking its outposts in Lithuania. 

He suggested the establishment of a Jesuit college at 
"Wilna, and translated into Eussian many Avorks of Latin 
theology. lie continued his labors with unremitting zeal, 
and earnestly advocated unity of belief as essential to the 
welfare of the kingdom ; he insidiously urged upon the 
nobles of Lithuania the advantages they would gain by 
adherence to the faith of their sovereign, and the new 
fields of honor and distinction thereby to be opened, and 
from which they remained debarred. His reasoning was 
persuasive and his arguments cogent, substantiated, as 
they were, by royal and papal promises. The incipient 
and growing discontent, thus artfully fomented, was fur- 
ther stimulated by the severity exercised by the patriarch 
Jeremiah, who visited Kiev on his return from Moscow 
to Constantinople. He endeavored to purify the Ortho- 
dox Church of Lithuania by the removal of unworthy 
members of its hierarchy, and hoped to impart fresh life 
and vigor by wholesome correction. He deposed the 
metropolitan Onicephorus, and consecrated Michael Ea- 
gosa in his stead. The new primate, yielding to the 
blandishments of the court, induced the bishops of his 
see to consent to union with Eome, and the synod sent 
ambassadors to Pope Clement VIII. to signify their sub- 
mission. 

In vain did Jeremiah threaten the apostates with ex- 
communication. Sigismund assured them of his protec- 
tion, and defied the patriarch's anathema. Te Deums 
were sung in St. Peter's, and medals were struck com- 
memorative of the event, but the results were not as sat- 
isfactory as had been anticipated. The seceding prel- 
ates did not meet from their Latin brethren the hearty 
recognition they had expected, and were not admitted to 



68 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the senate as equals in rank, while a strong opposition 
denounced the union as fraudulently and treacherously 
proclaimed. Each party deliberately anathematized the 
other, and the Church of Little Eussia was from this pe- 
riod, 1596, divided into the Orthodox and the Uniates, 
both sects preserving the same forms and ceremonies of 
worship, and, at first, professing the same creed, differ- 
ing only as regards acknowledging or rejecting the su- 
premacy of the pope. Kome, with considerate modera- 
tion, was content, for the time being, to waive questions 
of doctrine. The Uniates, exulting in their success, and 
relying on the hearty support of the secular power, were 
eager to enjoy the fruits of their victory; Dominican 
convents were established ; the Orthodox were excluded 
from the schools, while ordination was refused to all save 
graduates ; the Orthodox churches, monasteries, and re- 
ligious establishments were seized, and their revenues con- 
fiscated; Orthodox prelates were replaced by Uniates, 
until but a single bishop of the Greek religion remained 
in the realm. 

The Cossacks of the Don were steadfast in their ad- 
herence to the ancient creed, and frequently rose in arms 
for its defence. The strong leaven of faith among them 
and the people, kept in active ferment by persecution, 
greatly facilitated the conquest of Little Eussia by Alex- 
is Komanoff fifty years later. 

In Eussia the brilliant prospects attending Boris Go- 
dounov's usurpation were undergoing a gradual but 
radical change. His presence on the throne grated on 
the loyalty of the Eussian people to the blood of Euric ; 
he was not of the royal race, but of comparatively mean, 
even of foreign, origin, a descendant of a Tatar mourza. 

The nobles yielded unwilling obedience to one of infe- 
rior birth. Serfdom, which he rigorously enforced, re- 



GODOUNOV'S REIGN.-POPULAR DISCONTENT. G9 

volted the peasantry, and was irksome to the landlords. 
The protection which he accorded to foreigners and his 
encouragement of foreign arts and sciences were a terri- 
ble grievance to the clergy and the people. To Russians 
a foreigner was not only a stranger, he was an alien in 
blood, language, and religion. They divided mankind 
into three categories, and, leaving aside the " Busurmani," 
or Mussulmans of the East, the remainder of the human 
family was composed of the " Slovenie," or those having 
the gift of speech — their own and kindred races who 
could comprehend, or " speak " with, each other, and of 
the " Nyemtsi," or the " Dumb," who could not " speak" 
with them, comprising all "Western nations. 1 They did 
not esteem them Christians, and used the same term in- 
differently to designate the heathen. The Russian peo- 
ple was the Orthodox people ; their country was " Holy " 
Russia ; the presence of a foreigner therein was pollu- 
tion, and to visit foreign lands was a sin. The youths 
who were sent abroad by Boris for study were mourned 
by their families as lost beyond hope. 

Boris was devout in his religious duties, and his devo- 
tion was called hypocrisy, or was attributed to remorse. 
He withdrew from the eyes of his subjects, and claimed 
veneration as the vicar of God on earth; he ordered 
prayers to be recited in every household, at each repast, 
" for the salvation of the body and soul of the servant of 
God, the Tsar, chosen by the Eternal, Lord of all lands 
of the North and of the East, the only Christian mon- 
arch of the universe, whom all other sovereigns obey as 
slaves, whose mind is a well of wisdom, whose heart is 
full of love and mercy," 2 and his self -exaltation was 
deemed sacrilegious. 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 272. a Karamsin, vol. xi., p. 122. 



70 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Old stories of Dimitri' s assassination were revived, 
and suspicions became convictions ; Boris was accused of 
having summoned the Tatars, that, in the danger to the 
empire, his crime might be forgotten ; a terrible pesti- 
lence and famine was a token of divine wrath, and his 
beneficent measures to relieve the suffering were made a 
reproach. Discontent fed on calumny, and the country 
was ripe for revolt. 

Godounov met the hostile feeling by harsh and tyran- 
nical treatment of all who, from birth, rank, or influence, 
were objects of suspicion. The Romanoffs, who, from re- 
lationship with Anastasia, the virtuous wife of Ivan IV., 
shared the popular affection in which her memory was 
held, fell into disgrace. Their head, Feodor Mketitch, 
afterwards the celebrated patriarch Philaret, was forced 
into a monastery as a tonsured monk. 

The apparition of Dimitri, claiming to be the son of 
Ivan IV., was the breeze which fanned into open flame 
the kindling embers of disaffection. 

The Church remained loyal to the tsar, and hurled its 
anathema against the pretender as an unfrocked monk 
and arrant impostor, but the nobles and the people, weary 
of Boris's tyranny, hailed him as their deliverer and true- 
born lord. 

In 1603, by the influence of Claudio Rangoni, papal 
nuncio at the Polish court, Dimitri was acknowledged by 
King Sigismund as the rightful tsar. His apparition, 
at the moment when the struggle in Poland between 
Orthodoxy and the Unia was at its height, was most 
opportune for the Catholic party ; money and men were 
promised him upon condition of his embracing the Latin 
faith ; and he, nothing loath, agreed, but secretly, in or- 
der to avoid arousing the prejudices of his Russian sub- 
jects. Clement VII., rejoicing at the prospect of extend- 



USURPATION OF THE FALSE DIMITRI. 71 

ing the sway of Rome over the North, joyfully received 
him into the Church, and gave him his benediction. 
Supported by the Poles and Cossacks of the Don, aided 
by treachery, his march on Moscow met with no effect- 
ual opposition. Boris, enfeebled by disease, betrayed by 
his generals, and abandoned by all, was spared by death, 
in 1605, the final ignominy of submission. 

In the last terrible moments that decided the fate of 
the empire the courage and constancy of Job, the patri- 
arch, may have faltered ; he is said to have proffered, 
with other bishops, his submission to the pretender, but 
he nobly redeemed this momentary weakness. When 
Moscow, in flames, proclaimed the downfall of Boris, Job 
proceeded to the cathedral, and, while he was officiating 
at mass, the infuriated mob broke into the sanctuary, 
seized and dragged him from the altar. Job, in a loud 
voice, denounced the sacrilegious intrusion, and the rebel- 
lion against the Lord's anointed. " Here," said he, " be- 
fore this sacred image of the Virgin, for nineteen years, 
I have fought the good fight and preserved the unity of 
the faith. Now I foresee the troubles of the Church 
and the triumph of falsehood and impiety. Mother of 
God, save Orthodox Kussia !" Degraded from his office, 
insulted and beaten, he was hurried to confinement in 
the monastery of Staritza. 

Dimitri signalized his accession to power by acts of 
clemency, especially directed towards such as had suf- 
fered from the tyranny of his predecessor ; Philaret Ro- 
manoff became a recipient of his favor, and was made 
metropolitan of Rostov. 

Once firmly established in the capital, the pretender 
gradually yielded to his predilection for foreign man- 
ners and customs. He no longer hesitated to display 
his contempt for the antiquated, barbarous usages of his 



72 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Muscovite subjects, or feared to shock their national and 
religious prejudices. He surrounded himself with Poles, 
and took for his wife the beauteous Marina, a Polish 
princess. To the horror of all pious Kussians, and not- 
withstanding the remonstrance of the Church, this her- 
etic and foreign woman was crowned tsarina before her 
marriage, before she had abjured the Eoman faith or 
made profession of Orthodoxy. She encouraged Dimi- 
tri in the blind infatuation which led to his ruin. He 
threw off the dreary state and ceremony which hedged 
in the dignity of a tsar ; mocked at pious superstitions, 
refusing to cross himself before the sacred images or to 
have his table blessed and sprinkled with holy water ; 
partook of impure meats, and carelessly evinced his in- 
difference towards the Church and his ignorance of eccle- 
siastical history. He tolerated Lutherans, and welcomed 
Jesuits at his court ; allowed the erection of a Catholic 
church and the celebration of the Latin mass within the 
sacred precincts of the Kremlin. He graciously received 
apostolic benediction from the pope, and renewed his 
promise of abjuration. 

A more serious act was the nomination of Ignatius, a 
foreigner, as patriarch. This prelate had been archbish- 
op of Cyprus ; exiled from his see, he had, on pretence 
of suffering for the faith, imposed upon the pious credu- 
lity of Feodor, and obtained the bishopric of Kiazan. 
He was a Greek of wily, insinuating address, but of du- 
bious orthodoxy, willing to be a pliant tool in his mas- 
ter's hands. 

Popular discontent, artfully fomented by the nobles, 
who had favored the pretender only to compass the 
downfall of Godounov, stimulated by Dimitri's sup- 
posed intention to recognize the authority of the pope 
over the Church of Eussia and to sacrifice national in- 



DIMITRI SLAIN.-VASSILI SIIOUESKY, TSAR ^3 

terests to those of Poland, broke out into open rebel- 
lion. 

The usurper was slain, his foreign favorites and priests 
were massacred, and a council of boyars proclaimed Vas- 
sili Shouesky as tsar. The Church ratified and blessed 
the choice. It deposed the foreign intruder, Ignatius, 
and placed Ilermogenes, a prelate of unblemished char- 
acter and exemplary piety, on the patriarchal throne. 

The new tsar professed ardent devotion to the Church, 
and, to conciliate its powerful influence, as w r ell as grat- 
ify the religions sentiments of his subjects, he craved for 
himself and the whole people absolution for the crimes 
of treason to the son of Godounov and of submission to 
an impostor. The venerable Job was summoned for the 
last time from his convent cell for this solemn ceremony. 
Blind and infirm, tottering on the brink of the grave, he 
stood by the side of Ilermogenes, clad in the simple black 
gown of a monk, and received the confession of national 
repentance. As former patriarch and head of the Church, 
he pronounced the pardon and remission of the nation's 
sin, and invoked the blessing of God on the tsar and on 
Holy Orthodox Kussia. 

Yassili Shouesky's reign, thus auspiciously commenced, 
was doomed to end in disaster and ruin. 

A second and a third Dimitri, and an impostor pre- 
tending to be Peter, son of Feodor, appeared to claim 
the throne. Intestine strife and foreign invasions by 
Poles, Cossacks, and Swedes brought the empire to the 
verge of destruction. " Mounds of graves," says an an- 
cient chronicle, " dotted the land of Russia." The Church 
throughout remained loyal to Shouesky, the legitimate 
tsar, and faithful to the cause of national independence. 

At Tver the archbishop roused the people against the 
insurgent bands, and was slain; at Pskov the bishop, 



74 THE EUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Gennadius, died heartbroken at the treason of his city ; 
Gelaktion, Bishop of Souzdal, perished in exile rather than 
acknowledge a pretender ; Joseph, Bishop of Kolomna, 
was dragged in chains from town to town by another 
usurper for exhorting the marauders to obedience ; at 
Novgorod the metropolitan Isidore kept the citizens true 
to their allegiance, and led them in a vigorous, though 
hopeless, resistance against a Swedish army ; when the 
convent of Solovetsk was summoned, by the victorious 
Swedes, to surrender, with promise of a garrison for its 
protection, its hegumen Anthony stoutly replied, " The 
Lavra needs no protection from foreign soldiers, and no 
stranger shall ever be tsar of Kussia ;" when Rostov was 
captured Philaret Romanoff, the bishop, refused to aban- 
don his nock, and endeavored to protect it by the power 
of the Church ; seized by the victorious rebels while he 
was administering communion at the altar, dragged to 
the presence of their chief, the third Dimitri, the "Rob- 
ber of Touschina," whom Marina had joined and married, 
he defied his authority ; the great monastery of the Troitsa 
successfully maintained for months a siege against an army 
of thirty thousand Poles, poured out its treasures without 
stint, and the blood of its brethren like water for the de- 
fence and relief of the capital. When Yassili Shouesky, 
driven from the throne, was a captive in a Polish jail ; when 
Moscow fell, and Hermogenes, deposed by the invader, 
was thrust into prison to die of starvation ; when the em- 
pire was thus without a tsar and the Church without a 
head, the Holy Lavra of St. Sergius refused to submit or 
to acknowledge a foreign prince, and, under the leadership 
of its archimandrite Dionysius and of its bursar Abram 
Palitsin, bravely continued the almost hopeless struggle 
for the national existence and the national faith. " Its 
light," says a chronicle, " shone like a sun over all Russia." 



PATRIOTISM OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 75 

The record of the Church during these fearful years 
of anarchy and disaster is indeed glorious. JN T ot one of 
its officers gave adherence to a pretender or acknowl- 
edged the authority of a foreign usurper. When, in 
1610, Yassili was deposed by the Poles, forced to submit 
to tonsure, and immured in a monastery, Ilermogenes, 
the patriarch, raised his voice in protest ; when, subse- 
quently, in a council of rebellious boyars and Polish no- 
bles, some proposed the false Dimitri as tsar, and oth- 
ers successfully urged the election of Vladislas, son of the 
King of Poland, again the venerable prelate remonstrated, 
and implored the council neither to recognize a rebel nor 
to sanction the choice of a heretic and foreigner. 

From the Troitsa monastery the courageous Dionysius, 
by emissaries and letters, made earnest and constant ap- 
peal to the patriotism of the people. The Polish gov- 
ernor of Moscow and the rebellious Russian nobles or- 
dered Ilermogenes, as head of the Church, to forbid 
any national uprising. " I will forbid it," was the reply, 
" when I see Vladislas baptized and the country freed 
from Poles ; if this is not to be, then I enjoin upon all 
to rise, and I absolve them from their oath to the king's 
son. I will give my blessing to all who are ready to die 
for the Orthodox faith." 

Moscow was sacked and destroyed by the Polish sol- 
diery. Ilermogenes was deposed, and suffered martyr- 
dom in prison. Ignatius, formerly a creature of the 
first pretender, Dimitri, now willing to be the minion of 
a foreign invader, was again seated on the patriarchal 
throne, amid the smoking ruins of the capital. Univer- 
sal anarchy reigned supreme, and yet there was hope for 
Eussia in the undying attachment of the people for their 
native soil and their national religion, and from among 
the people was to arise their deliverer. 



76 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

An obscure citizen of Mjni-Novgorod, a butcher, Koz- 
ma Minhne, raised the standard of revolt in behalf of 
Holy Kussia and the persecuted faith. In rough and 
ready eloquence he appealed to the nation ; " Let us rise," 
said he, " one and all, young and old ; the time has come 
for us to risk our lives for the truth, but this even is not 
enough, we must sell our houses and lands, pledge our 
wives and children, to raise up armies for the deliver- 
ance of our country." As he spoke so he acted ; he gave 
all he possessed to the common cause, and the people, 
electrified by his appeal, shamed by his example, rallied 
at his call, and chose him for their chief, with the title of 
" The Chosen One of all the Eussian Empire." Minime 
was gifted with sound sense, ready tact, utter disinter- 
estedness, and self-abnegation. He gave as leader to the 
army Prince Dimitri Pojarsky, an able soldier, a true 
and honest patriot. A solemn fast was enjoined upon 
the whole land, and this furious outburst of national feel- 
ing, stimulated by religious enthusiasm, was universal and 
irresistible. Traitors and pretenders vanished before it ; 
foreign invaders were driven from city to city,, Mos- 
cow was recovered, and, in 1613, a great council of the 
clergy and people, in harmonious accord, renounced alle- 
giance to Yladislas, and acclaimed Michael Komanoff, 
son of Philaret, as tsar. When Moscow was retaken 
Ignatius had fled to Poland for safety, and, in the ab- 
sence of a patriarch, Michael was crowned by three 
metropolitans, one of whom, Jonah of the Steeps, was 
placed in charge of the patriarchate until more tranquil 
times might permit a regular election of a head of the 
Church. 

The struggle against the Poles and the Swedes still 
continued, with varying success. The Trinity monastery 
was again besieged by a foreign army, but patriotism 



ROMANOFF DYNASTY.— PHILARET PATRIARCH. Y7 

and religion were triumphant, and, under the walls of 
the sacred fortress, a truce was finally concluded, though 
at costly sacrifice of territory, and the empire gained 
breathing-time in which to recruit its shattered strength. 

The young tsar Michael, educated in a convent, under 
a pious mother's eye, was by natural inclination, as well 
as from early training, of a devout and religious charac- 
ter, and the interests and welfare of the Church were the 
earliest objects of his solicitude. The first step towards 
its reorganization was the election of a head to replace 
the fugitive Ignatius. Philaret Romanoff was the com- 
mon choice of the tsar, the clergy, and the people. It 
was approved, also, by Theophanes of Jerusalem, who, 
sent by his brother-patriarchs of the East to the assist- 
ance of the Orthodox in Lithuania, visited Moscow, and 
gladly lent his aid to restore order and discipline in the 
Church of Russia. 

Worn out by the hardships and misfortunes of his 
checkered life ; in youth a victim of Godounov's tyran- 
ny, made a monk against his will, confined, banished, 
drivon from his diocese by violence, long separated from 
friends and family, for nine years a captive in a Polish 
prison, now, in old age, restored to his native land, Phil- 
aret's only desire was to end his days in peace, and he 
yielded a reluctant consent to assume the high office and 
grave responsibilities pressed upon him. By his eleva- 
tion to the ecclesiastical throne " the extraordinary spec- 
tacle, never before or since seen in the annals of the world, 
was presented of a father as patriarch and a son as sover- 
eign governing the empire," ' an event most character- 
istic of the nation and typical of the indissoluble connec- 
tion in Russia of the Church and State. 

1 Mouravief, p. 177. 



78 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Animated by the same high motives, united in mutual 
affection and confidence, the tsar and the primate labored 
in harmony for the restoration of civil prosperity and of 
religious order and discipline. 

The long period of anarchy and confusion had seri- 
ously aggravated the evils arising from errors in the 
Church books, ritual, and ceremonies. All previous at- 
tempts to correct them had been incomplete or unsatis- 
factory. A thorough reform was indispensable to check 
abuses, eradicate erroneous or superstitious practices, and 
preserve the integrity and spirituality of Church wor- 
ship. Michael urged upon the clergy the necessity of 
undertaking anew the work of expurgation and correc- 
tion, and was supported by the patriarchs Philaret and 
Theophanes. Any change was, however, repugnant to 
the people and to the more bigoted of the clerical body ; 
they were strongly attached to what they conceived to 
be the ancient forms, and angrily opposed any innova- 
tions. The controversy on the subject was violent and 
bitter, and this reformation made comparatively little 
progress. Much, however, was done to extend the pow- 
er and influence of the Church. Loftier titles and great- 
er dignity were conferred upon the patriarch, and the 
privileges of the clergy, dating back to Vladimir the 
Great, were renewed and increased. 

The property and ministers of the Church were ex- 
empt from civil dues. The officers, servants, and serfs of 
the patriarch were made amenable to him or to his court 
alone, save for crimes involving life, and upon these the 
patriarchal court first pronounced. The great monaste- 
ries of the Troi'tsa, of the Ascension, and of the Novo- 
dyevitchi, 1 were subjected to his direction. These, and 

1 Conveut of tlie " Maidens." 



REFORMS IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 79 

all ecclesiastical establishments appertaining to the pa- 
triarchate, with their lands, clergy, and following, were 
placed under his special charge, and, in the event of civil 
suits, were to be judged by the court of the Great Pal- 
ace, that is, before the sovereign in person. The exten- 
sion of the privileges of the clergy was accompanied by 
a renewal of the restriction established by Ivan III., ren- 
dered advisable by the enormous increase of their wealth ; 
the monasteries were prohibited from further acquisition 
of landed property without special authorization. 

Philaret was as solicitous for the internal discipline of 
the Church as for its material prosperity, and shared the 
desire of its more enlightened prelates to free it from 
superstition and error. Efforts in this direction, led by 
Dionysius, the celebrated and patriotic superior of the 
Troitsa monastery, had, immediately prior to Philaret's 
elevation to the primacy, been checked by clerical intol- 
erance ; Dionysius, with his adherents, had been subject- 
ed to severe punishment for alleged tampering with 
sacred mysteries. This persecution was stopped, the 
reformers were released, and encouraged to persevere in 
their labors. 

The pious zeal of the patriarch, stimulated by the 
fierce religious struggle in Lithuania and Poland, led 
him to draw a stronger line of demarkation between the 
Churches by re-establishing a custom, which had fallen 
into disuse and was afterwards abrogated, of rebap- 
tizing converts from the Latin faith upon their admis- 
sion to the Greek communion. 

The Church, in remote provinces of the empire, felt 
his paternal care. The archbishoprics of Ivasan and As- 
tracan were reorganized ; in them, and in Siberia, regular 
ecclesiastical administration replaced chaos and anarchy. 
The savage and predatory population of these countries, 



80 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 



which had relapsed into barbarism, were brought under 
the civilizing influences of religion. 

Philaret's anxiety for the interests of the Church was 
not restricted by the limits of the empire. The close 
spiritual connection he maintained with Novgorod hast- 
ened its final reunion to Eussia, and his sympathy was 
constantly directed towards the suffering Orthodox pop- 
ulation of the neighboring realm. 

After the reorganization of the Church in Eussia the 
Eastern patriarch proceeded on his mission to Poland. 
There active and cruel persecution by the Uniate and 
Catholic prelates, aided by the weakness and vacillation 
of King Sigismund, had reduced the Orthodox Church to 
the direst extremity. For upwards of twenty years it 
had been deprived of a head and of all means of united 
action. Its dioceses were without bishops ; its clergy, pur- 
sued with systematic severity, were forbidden to officiate, 
were imprisoned, tortured, and slain, but the great body 
of its adherents among the people, together with most 
of the Cossack population, were ardently attached to 
their religion. They evinced their devotion, not merely 
by patient endurance, but also by frequent rebellion 
against the intolerance of their masters. Theophanes 
was at first received with scant courtesy by the king, 
but, after reference to Constantinople, his dignity as pa- 
triarch was recognized, and he was allowed to remain at 
Kiev. Proceeding with exemplary moderation and cau- 
tion, he succeeded gradually in obtaining permission to 
open schools for his clergy and to establish charitable 
and religious institutions for members of his Church. 
Encouraged by the immunity attending his early efforts 
and by the renewed life and vigor aroused with return 
of confidence and hope for the future, he steadily pur- 
sued the work of reorganization. In 1620 he installed 



THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN ROLAND.— PERSECUTION. 81 

Job Boretsky as metropolitan of Kiev, and appointed 
bishops to the various dioceses. Having thus re-estab- 
lished the Church, with its hierarchy complete, Theoph- 
anes returned to Jerusalem. 

This period of tranquillity was but the precursor of a 
more violent storm. Sigismund, always weak and easily 
swayed, yielded to the influence of his Eomish advisers, 
and permitted a revival of the contest between the hos- 
tile factions, one struggling for existence, the other striv- 
ing for domination. The Catholics and Uniates, strong 
in the support of royal authority, pursued the Orthodox 
with all the rancor and ferocity of clerical fanaticism. 
Their schools were suppressed ; their churches closed or 
turned into inns, barracks, and mosques; their clergy 
were deprived of protection from the mob, and prevent- 
ed from officiating; congregations were dispersed by 
force ; the dead were left without burial rites ; sanctua- 
ries and cemeteries were rifled and desecrated. The peo- 
ple, goaded beyond endurance, rose against their oppres- 
sors, and exercised fearful reprisals. The Cossacks mas- 
sacred the Catholics at Kiev; Jehosaphat, the Uniate 
archbishop of Polotsk, infamous among the Orthodox 
for his bloodthirsty cruelty, and canonized at Eome for 
his righteous zeal, was killed by a mob, and the vicar of 
the Uniate metropolitan was drowned. 

The two primates, Job the Orthodox and Joseph the 
Uniate, convoked rival synods, and were engaged in 
mutual excommunications when the death of Sigismund 
checked the fever of persecution. His son and successor, 
Vladislas IV., signalized his accession to the throne by 
an edict of toleration. Freedom of worship, with the 
right of electing their metropolitan, was granted to the 
Orthodox, and the ancient cathedral of St. Sophia, at 
Kiev, was restored to them. 
6 



82 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Job died in 1632. Peter Mogila, who succeeded him, 
was a man eminently qualified, by his firmness and de- 
cision of character, as well as by. erudition and piety, to 
be head of the Church in difficult times. 

This distinguished prelate, son of Simon Ivanovitch, 
hospodar of Moldavia, was educated in Paris, and in his 
youth had served with distinction in the wars of the 
Poles against the Turks ; renouncing the career of arms, 
he entered the monastery of the Petcherski, at Kiev, and 
soon rose to be its superior. Appointed exarch by Cyril 
Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople, he boldly and cour- 
ageously upheld the rights of the Greek Church at the 
Diet of Warsaw. To his able advocacy was mainly due 
the liberty of conscience proclaimed by King Yladis- 
las and the restoration to the Orthodox of the churches, 
convents, and estates wrested from them by the Uniates. 
He established libraries and printing-presses, reopened 
seminaries and schools for the clergy, and sent chosen 
pupils to study in foreign universities. The celebrated 
academy of Kiev, founded by him in 1634, was a lasting 
memorial of his name. 

During the reign of Yladislas the Orthodox Church 
enjoyed a short respite from persecution, during which 
Peter engaged in active theological controversy with its 
enemies. He issued from his presses the writings of the 
Greek fathers and books of the Church ; he restored the 
purity of the ritual, and, with the assistance of the archi- 
mandrite, Isaiah Trophimovitch, he drew up a confes- 
sion of the Orthodox faith, in order to authoritatively 
establish the cardinal points of its doctrine, and clear away 
the subtile errors and conflicting distinctions thrown 
around it by the writings of Jesuit and Eoman theolo- 
gians. This confession was revised by a council of bish- 
ops, and sent to Constantinople for approval and confir- 



PETER MOOILA'S CONFESSION OF FAITH. 83 

mation. Peter's former patron, Cyril Lucar, was no 
longer alive to encourage his efforts ; this energetic and 
learned Cretan had, in his extensive travels throughout 
Europe, become imbued with the reformatory tendency 
of the age, and, in accordance with it, had attempted the 
regeneration of the Eastern Church ; he was five times 
deposed from and reinstated upon the patriarchal throne, 
and was finally murdered by the Turks, in 1G28. Par- 
thenius was patriarch when the confession of Peter Mo- 
gila was referred to the Eastern fathers. At a synod 
convened at Jassy, in 1G43, it was amended by Meletius 
Striga, of Constantinople, and in its revised form was ap- 
proved, and again confirmed, by the council of 1G72, under 
the direction of the patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem. 

This confession was generally received by the Russian 
Church, and was formally adopted by Adrian, Patriarch 
of Moscow from 1G90 to 1700. "With the exception of 
the doctrines regarding the supremacy of the pope and 
the Double Procession, it was in general accord with the 
teachings of the Roman Church, towards which the the- 
ologians of Kiev were, from the influence of their sur- 
roundings, more strongly inclined than their Muscovite 
brethren. No other authoritative expression of belief 
was put forth until 17G6 ; but while Peter's confession 
has been considered correct in its fundamental principles, 
it has, since that date, been modified by Russian prelates, 
and the doctrines of the Russian Church, as now set 
forth by its catechisms, issued under authority of Phila- 
ret, Metropolitan of Moscow from 1820 to 186 7, and used 
in its schools since 1839, may be summarized as follows : J 

1 This summary has been taken from an article on the Greek Church 
in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, vol. XL, p. 158, by Rev. T. M. Lindsay, 
D.D. Small capitals denote differences from Roman Catholic, italics 
differences from Protestant, doctrine. 



84 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 



Christianity is a divine revelation, communicated to 
mankind through Christ ; its saving truths are to be 
learned from the Bible and tradition, the former hav- 
ing been written and the latter maintained uncorrupted 
through the influence of the Holy Spirit ; the interpreta- 
tion of the Bible belongs to the Church, which is taught 
by the Holy Spirit, but every believer may read the 
Scriptures. 

According to the Christian revelation, God is a Trin- 
ity ; that is, the Divine Essence exists in Three Persons, 
perfectly equal in nature and dignity, the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost; the Holy Ghost proceeds 
feom the Father only. Besides the Triune God there 
is no other object of divine worship, but homage (vrrep- 
SovX'ia) may be paid to the Virgin Mary and reverence 
(SouAm) to the saints and to their pictures and relics. 

Man is born with a corrupt bias which was not his at 
creation ; the first man, when created, possessed immor- 
tality, PERFECT WISDOM, AND A WILL REGULATED BY REA- 
SON. Through the first sin Adam and his posterity lost 
immortality, and his will received a bias towards evil. 
In this natural state man, who, even before he actually 
sins, is a sinner before God by original or inherited sin, 
commits manifold actual transgressions; but he is not 
absolutely without power of will towards good, and is not 
always doing evil. 

Christ, the Son of God, became man in two natures, 
which, internally and inseparably united, make one Per- 
son, and, according to the eternal purpose of God, has 
obtained for man reconciliation with God and eternal 
life, inasmuch as He, by His vicarious death, has made 
satisfaction to God for the world's sins, and this satis- 
faction WAS PERFECTLY COMMENSURATE WITH THE SINS OF 
THE WORLD. 



TRESENT DOCTRINES OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 85 

Man is made partaker of reconciliation in spiritual re- 
generation, which he attains to, being led and kept by 
the Holy Ghost. This divine help is offered to all men 
without distinction, and may be rejected. In order to 
attain salvation, man is justified, and, when so justified, 

CAN DO NO MORE THAN THE COMMANDS OF GoD. Jle may 

fall from a state of grace through mortal sin. 

Regeneration is offered by the word of God and in 
the sacraments, which, under visible signs, communicate 
God's invisible grace to Christians when administered 
" cum intentione" 

There are seven mysteries or sacraments. Baptism 
entirely destroys original sin. In the Eucharist the true 
body and blood of Christ are substantially present, and 
the elements are changed into the substance of Christ, 
whose body and blood are corporeally partaken of by com- 
municants. All Christians should receive the bread 
and the wine. 

The Eucharist is also an expiatory sacrifice. The new 
birth, when lost, may be restored through repentance, 
which is not merely (1) sincere sorrow, but also (2) con- 
fession of each individual sin to the priest, and (3) the 
discharge of penances imposed by the priest for the re- 
moval of the temporal punishment which may have been 
imposed by God and the Church. Penance, accompanied 
by the judicial absolution of the priest, makes a true 
sacrament. 

The Church of Christ is the fellowship of all those 

WHO ACCEPT AND PROFESS ALL THE ARTICLES OF FAITH TRANS- 
MITTED BY THE APOSTLES AND APPROVED BY GENERAL SyN- 

ods. Without this visible Church there is no salvation. 
It is under the abiding influence of the Holy Ghost, and 
therefore cannot err in matters of faith. 

Specially appointed persons are necessary in the ser- 



86 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

vice of the Church, and they form a threefold order, dis- 
tinct, jure divino,from other Christians, of bishops, priests, 
and deacons. The four patriarchs, of equal dignity, 

HAVE THE HIGHEST RANK AMONG THE BISHOPS, and the Msh- 

ops, united in a General Council, represent the Church, 
and infallibly decide, under the guidance of the Holy 
Ghost, all matters of faith and ecclesiastical life. All 
ministers of Christ must be regularly called and appoint- 
ed to their office, and are consecrated by the sacrament 
of orders. Bishops must be unmarried, and priests and 

DEACONS MUST NOT CONTRACT A SECOND MARRIAGE. To all 

priests in common belongs, besides the preaching of the 
word, the administration of the six sacraments — bap- 
tism, CONFIRMATION, PENANCE, EUCHARIST, MATRIMONY, UNC- 
TION of the sick. The bishops alone can administer the 
sacrament of orders. 

Ecclesiastical ceremonies are part of the divine service / 
most of them have apostolic origin / and those connected 
with the sacrament must not be omitted by priests tender 
pain of mortal sin. 

The Cossacks of the Ukraine and " of the Horde be- 
yond the Falls " were ardently attached to the Orthodox 
faith, and had frequently risen in its defence. Although 
pacified by the promises of Yladislas, they were again 
aroused to revolt by renewed persecution on the part of 
the Eomish and Uniate clergy, and religious antagonism 
led to a long and bloody struggle, during which these 
disaffected subjects of the Polish king made repeated ap- 
peals to Russia for assistance. Early in the century Job, 
Metropolitan of Kiev, had urged the tsar to extend his 
protection over the Ukraine, but Russia was too weak to 
cope with Poland. Michael dismissed the Cossacks with 
ample, but empty, assurances of sympathy. 

Alexis, son of Michael, vigorously pursued his father's 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE.-NIKON. 87 

task of pacifying and reorganizing the empire, still torn 
bv intestine contentions and ^roanin^ under onerous, but 
necessary, taxation. He convened a national assembly 
for the formation of a code which should embody all 
the regulations requisite for the efficient government of 
both the State and the Church. While inheriting his 
father's pious and devout disposition, he felt the necessi- 
ty of curbing the excessive power of the Church, which 
threatened to overshadow that of the crown. To this 
end he established the " Monastery Tribunal," consisting 
of lay members, which was empowered to deal with mat- 
ters concerning the clergy and their estates, over which 
hitherto the patriarchal court had held jurisdiction. He 
further ordered that the domains and acquisitions of the 
Church and clergy, which had enormously increased, in 
violation of the ordinance of Ivan III., should be made 
the subject of investigation. 

Then commenced in Russia the mighty struggle be- 
tween the civil and ecclesiastical powers, in which the 
final victory was to remain with the State, and then 
appeared the great reformer and champion of the 
Church, a man destined to exercise a deep and lasting 
influence upon the Eussian nation and the national 
Church. 

Nikita, who subsequently bore the name of Xikon, 
was born of obscure parentage, in the district of Kijni- 
Novgorod, in 1613. In early life he felt an imperative 
call to enter the Church, and secretly left his home to 
become a monk. At his father's earnest entreaty he re- 
turned, married, and was ordained a parish priest ; his 
children died in infancy, and this affliction seemed to 
him a summons from on high to renounce the world. 
He persuaded his wife to enter a convent, and took upon 
himself vows of strictest reclusion in the Solovetsk mon- 



88 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

astery, on the shores of the White Sea. In this forlorn 
and desolate retreat of almost perpetual winter he passed 
many years, living apart from the brotherhood, on a des- 
ert island, mortifying the flesh by rigid discipline and 
fasting. Disagreeing with his fellow-monks as to the 
employment of the convent funds, and unable to submit 
to dictation, he sought refuge at the Kojeozersk monas- 
tery, where, by his austere life and exemplary devotion, 
he gained wide-spread reputation for sanctity. Made 
superior of the monastery, he was called to the capital 
by the duties of his charge, and while there he officiated 
and preached before the tsar. His striking personal 
appearance, his gigantic stature, his earnestness and 
fiery eloquence, made a deep impression upon the 
young and pious monarch. Alexis, hearing of his holy 
life, wished to retain him near his person, and made 
him archimandrite of the Novospassky l monastery at 
Moscow. 

The strength and originality of Nikon's character, 
the bold frankness of his disposition, his eager, self-sac- 
rifising zeal, his lofty and far-sighted genius, both in po- 
litical and ecclesiastical matters, his indomitable courage 
and independence, his generous spirit and high sense of 
justice, made him a fit counsellor for the sovereign. He 
has been variously judged by his countrymen and pos- 
terity ; he has been compared to Thomas a Becket and 
"Wolsey, his ambition condemned as dangerous to the 
State, his pride and arrogance as insufferable, but the sav- 
age, barbarous condition of the people whom he was called 
to govern, the disordered state of the country, the igno- 
rance and superstition of the clergy and the degradation 
of the Church, must not be forgotten. His faults were 

1 Of the Saviour, from Spass, Saviour. 



NIKON.— METROPOLITAN OF NOVGOROD. 89 

those of a great and noble nature ; his object was not 
personal or selfish ; his energies were exerted for the ag- 
grandizement of the Church of which he was the faith- 
ful pastor, for its elevation and purification from error; 
his patriotism was sincere, and his devotion to the tsar 
never faltered, even during the years of persecution and 
suffering which closed his life. 

Alexis took pleasure in his conversation and compan- 
ionship, and leaned upon him, in utter confidence, as a 
trusty servant, a true and honest friend. He made him 
Metropolitan of Novgorod, and then, wearying at the 
separation, called him constantly to his side for consulta- 
tion and advice ; he delighted to do him honor, and gave 
him the lands about the beautiful Lake of Yaldai, where 
Nikon built, upon a wooded island, the Iversky Convent, 
as a resting-place on his long and frequent journeys to 
and from the capital. In his capacity of metropolitan 
he was, by special favor, invested with extraordinary 
powers ; his court was authorized to adjudicate all eccle- 
siastical matters within his see, and its jurisdiction was 
extended over all cases in which the Church or the clergy 
were concerned. "While at Novgorod his administration 
was distinguished by characteristic energy ; he visited 
the prisons and dispensed justice in person ; he watched 
with paternal care over the material, as well as over the 
spiritual, welfare of his people. During a terrible fam- 
ine he spent his revenues in building hospitals and houses 
of refuge, and in relieving the poor and suffering. When 
a rebellious outbreak threatened the imperial authority, 
and the governors of Pskov were massacred by the pop- 
ulace, he was the uncompromising defender of the law ; 
at the risk of his life, he faced the insurgents, and gave 
shelter to the fugitive magistrates ; maltreated by the 
mob, and left for dead in the street, he no sooner recov- 



90 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ered consciousness, than lie appeared again in their midst, 
exhorting them to submission. He prevented the be- 
tra} r al of Novgorod to the Swedes, and hurled the anath- 
emas of the Church against the traitors to the tsar ; his 
firmness and courage gave time for succor to arrive and 
preserved the city to the empire, while his subsequent 
mild and judicious measures effectually quelled the re- 
bellion. 

His energy in civil matters was equalled only by his zeal 
in affairs of the Church. He insisted, among the clergy, 
upon cleanliness of person and apparel, decency of life, 
and purity of morals ; he encouraged the decoration of 
churches, chapels, and altars, and surrounded the ritual 
with extraordinary ceremony and pomp ; he regulated 
anew the order of divine service, and introduced harmo- 
nious chants from Greece and the East, with well-drilled 
choirs of soft Cossack voices ; he condemned the idola- 
trous worship of the sacred pictures and their meretri- 
cious adornment by foreign art ; gifted, himself, with flu- 
ent eloquence, he supplemented, by preaching, the monot- 
onous reading of the lessons. 

His imperious, domineering disposition had created 
many enemies, and the changes he introduced into the ser- 
vice, although they were a return to the original prac- 
tices of the Greek Church, had. aroused a feeling of strong 
antagonism on the part of the people and of many of the 
clergy, who were fanatically attached to their own, and, 
in their opinion, the ancient, forms, but this hostility 
dared not manifest itself by open opposition, and found 
vent only in secret murmurings. Nikon, strong in the 
affection and support of the tsar, distinguished for the 
purity and austerity of his life and for untiring zeal, was, 
notwithstanding latent discontent, called by unanimous 
desire to the patriarchal throne. Aware of the enmity 



NIKON.-PATRIARCII OF RUSSIA. 91 

lie had excited, yet conscious of high purpose and deter- 
mined to persevere, lie consented to accept the post only 
upon condition that his control over the Church should 
be absolute and unfettered, and should be so declared by 
imperial decree. 

His elevation to the primacy was signalized by more 
energetic action, and his measures of reform aimed high- 
er than at mere restoration of accurate ceremonial ob- 
servance. He punished with relentless severity all trans- 
gressions of the clergy, all indifference and sloth in the 
discharge of their duties, and, especially, he set his face 
against their besetting sin, intemperance. Heads of mon- 
asteries and high dignitaries, as well as simple monks, 
were made to feel the weight of his displeasure; the 
distant convents of Siberia were filled with dissolute, 
wretched priests, condemned without appeal and ban- 
ished without mercy. He endeavored to give life to the 
Church, and to create a sense of the moral obligation im- 
posed by religion. As supreme pontiff, he continued his 
former habit of expounding and preaching. In the ac- 
count of Macarius's travels there is frequent allusion to 
the surprise of the Eastern prelates at this innovation, 
of which they were witnesses, and to the long and " copi- 
ous " patriarchal sermons, " until our spirits were broken 
within us the tedious while." Their chronicler, Paul of 
Aleppo, also expatiates, with pious joy, upon the extraor- 
dinary devotion manifested by the emperor and the peo- 
ple. When Alexis took the field against the Poles " the 
patriarch stood before him, and raised his voice in prayer 
for the emperor, making a beautiful exordium with par- 
ables and proverbs from the ancients . . . and with much 
prolixity of discourse, running on at his leisure, like a 
copious stream of running water. . . . Iso one seemed to 
find fault with him, or to be tired of his discourse ; but 



92 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

all were silent and attentive as if each were a pauper or 
a slave before his master. But what most excited our 
admiration was to see the emperor standing with his 
head uncovered while the patriarch wore his crown be- 
fore him ; the one with his hands crossed in humility, 
the other displaying them with the action and boldness 
of an orator addressing his auditors ; the one bowing his 
bare head in silence to the ground, the other bending his 
towards him with the crown upon it, speaking to him ; 
the one guarding his senses and breathing low, the other 
making his voice to ring like a loud bell ; the one as if 
he were a slave, the other as his lord ! What a sight for 
us ! God knows our hearts ached for the emperor ; was 
not this singular humility ?" And upon another occa- 
sion Paul relates : " We returned to our monastery as- 
tonished and wonder-struck at the constancy and firm- 
ness of this nation, from the emperor to their very infants. 
We entered the church as the clock struck three, and did 
not leave it till ten ; having stood there with them about 
seven hours, on our legs, on the cold iron pavement, en- 
during the most severe cold and piercing frost. But we 
were consoled for all this by witnessing the admirable 
devotion of this people. Nor was the patriarch satisfied 
with the ritual and the long service, but he must crown 
all with an admonition and a copious sermon. Gocl grant 
him moderation ! His heart did not ache for the emperor 
nor for the tender infants ! What should we say to this 
in our country ? Would to God we were thus patient ! 
Without doubt the great Creator has granted to this na- 
tion to be His peculiar people, and it becomes them to be 
so because all their actions are according to the spirit, 
and not to the flesh, and they are all of this disposition." 
Of Nikon's influence, and of the trust reposed in him 
by the tsar, and of the dignity and state he assumed, 



NIKON AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS POWER. Q3 

this eye-witness goes on to say : " Before the emperor's 
departure (against the Poles) he appointed a vice-regent 
and many ministers ; the patriarch he placed as inspect- 
or over all, so that no affair, whether superior or inferior, 
should be decided without his advice, nor without their 
declaring it before him every morning of every day as it 
occurred. Thus, even in the frosty season, we observed 
the greatest among the ministers, the emperor's Vakeel 
or Deputy, repairing to the public office. Whenever it 
happened that the ministers were not all assembled in 
the divan when the patriarch's bell rang for them to re- 
pair to his palace — as the door is always closed during 
prayers — those archons who were too late were obliged 
to wait at his door in the excessive cold until he should 
order them to be admitted ; ... on their being permitted 
to enter, the patriarch would turn to the images, and, in 
secret, repeat a prayer, whilst they bowed to him all to- 
gether to the ground, with their heads uncovered, as 
they remained until they went out. Thus he conversed 
with them standing, while they presented to him their 
accounts of everything that w r as passing. To each he 
gave answer concerning every affair, commanding them 
what they should do. By what we observed of the 
grandees of the empire they do not much fear the em- 
peror, nor entertain much dread of him ; they rather fear 
this patriarch, and by many degrees more. His prede- 
cessors in the patriarchal dignity did not interfere at all 
in affairs of the State, but this man, from his ingenuity, 
comprehension, and knowledge, is accomplished in every 
art and skill as regards the affairs of the Church and the 
State, and all temporal affairs whatsoever." ' 
In the plenitude of his power Nikon steadily pursued 

1 Macarius, vol. ii., pp. 51-74. 



94 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the reformation of the Church, and, as the chief means 
to this end, he determined upon the purification of its 
service and ritual, and the correction of the sacred books. 
This undertaking, in which the tsar evinced the strongest 
interest, commenced under Vassili IY. and continued at 
different periods, had never been satisfactorily accom- 
plished. Former errors remained, and fresh ones had 
been ingrafted upon the old, which, by time and suffer- 
ance, had taken deeper root. The churches and monas- 
teries throughout the empire were ransacked for ancient 
manuscripts ; missions were sent to the Holy Places of 
Palestine, and to Constantinople for information and au- 
thoritative records. Paisius, the Byzantine patriarch, and 
his oecumenical brethren offered their co-operation, and 
supplied the writings of the Greek fathers, the early 
canons and creeds of the Church, and decisions of Coun- 
cils. They proposed the adoption of the Confession of 
Peter Mogila as the accurate embodiment of Orthodox 
doctrine, and urged adherence to the rules of the primi- 
tive Church, as well in rites and ceremonies, as in dogma. 
The presence of Macarius, patriarch of Antioch, and of 
other Eastern prelates, gave additional solemnity to the 
proceedings of the synod, convened in 1654, over which 
Nikon and the tsar presided. 

The points of divergence which had gradually arisen 
between the Russian and the other Greek churches re- 
lated more to matters of ceremonial observance than to 
those of doctrine. Trivial as they may appear in the 
light of modern criticism, they were then held to be of 
vital importance, involving the very essence of the faith, 
and only by the practice of the primitive Eastern Church 
could the truth regarding them be authoritatively estab- 
lished. "I am a Russian, son of a Russian," declared 
Nikon, " but my faith and my religion are Grecian." 



RUSSIAN AND EASTERN CHURCHES.— DIFFERENCES. 05 

The principal differences to be settled were : whether a 
triple halleluia should be pronounced, in honor of the Trin- 
ity, or a double halleluia, in reference to the double nat- 
ure of Christ ; whether processions around the churches 
should march against or with the sun; whether it be 
right or wrong to shave the beard ; whether at mass 
there should be upon the altar one or many loaves — the 
Russian used seven ; whether the name Jesus should be 
spelled Ilssons or Issous ; whether, in prayer, the Saviour 
should be addressed as our God or as the Son of God ; 
whether it be right to say of God, whose reign is eternal, 
or whose reign shall be eternal; whether the cross should 
have four or eight points ; and whether the sign of the 
cross should be made with three fingers extended, as de- 
noting the Trinity, and two closed, in reference to Christ's 
double nature, or with, two fingers extended, in allusion to 
the double nature, and three closed, in token of the Trinity. 

The hidden and typical significance of these ceremonies 
and symbols constituted their special importance. The 
Greeks, in each case, followed the former, and the Russians 
the latter, of the above alternatives, and in these respects 
a change, so as to conform to the Greek practice, was 
ordained by the synod, and was confirmed by subsequent 
councils in 1666 and 1667. 

The Russian form of the cross, however, prevailed in 
the empire : the lower branch is not at right angles with 
the stem, but is slanting, in consequence of a tradition 
that Christ was deformed, with one leg longer than the 
other, and the lower branch of the cross, upon which his 
feet rested, was made to meet this personal defect. In 
popular belief, the Saviour was made to share to the ut- 
most the degradation of humanity, and, in the words of 
Isaiah, " he hath no form nor comeliness ; ... he is de- 
spised and rejected of men ; ... he was despised and we 



96 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

esteemed him not ; . . . we did esteem him stricken, smit- 
ten of God, and afflicted." ' 

During the Tatar subjugation the cross on the churches 
was replaced by the crescent, and, after their expulsion, 
the crescent was not removed, but was surmounted by a 
cross, in significance of the triumph of Christianity. 

In addition to the changes enumerated above, another 
decree of the council, secured by Nikon's influence, 
evinced the larger spirit of Christian charity which char- 
acterized his efforts at reform ; the validit}^ of baptism 
by the Latin Church was recognized, which, although 
contrary to the decision of his great predecessor Phil- 
aret, and to the practice at Constantinople, was in accord- 
ance with the rules of the churches in Palestine. The 
alterations in the service, decided upon after much and 
stormy discussion, were at once promulgated and en- 
forced throughout the empire. The people, filled with 
superstitious veneration for familiar forms, received these 
innovations with strong dislike, as an impious profana- 
tion of what they deemed most sacred, and a very large 
body of the clergy shared this feeling. 

Nikon's enemies fomented the spirit of discontent, but 
his power was yet too firmly established for any suc- 
cessful resistance. The members of the clergy who ven- 
tured to oppose his plans w ere made to feel the impotency 
of their endeavors by banishment and prison. Paul, 
Bishop of Kolomna, was arbitrarily deprived of his dio- 
cese and exiled to Siberia, without trial by his peers, and 
in violation of ecclesiastical law. 

Nikon's intolerant exercise of authority, his severity 
towards the clergy, his overbearing arrogance towards 
all, increased the growing hostility to his power ; but, 

1 Hare, " Studies in Russia," p. 221. 



OPPOSITION TO NIKON. 97 

conscious of the rectitude of his intentions, and confident 
in his influence over the tsar, he disregarded and set at 
naught the machinations of his enemies. 

While thus zealously engaged in ecclesiastical reform, 
his restless energy found other spheres of action in civil 
matters. He was a patriot as well as churchman, and 
eagerly favored all measures conducing to the aggran- 
dizement of Russia, especially where the interests of the 
Church were likewise involved. The supplication of the 
Cossacks of the Ukraine for protection, formerly pre- 
sented under Michael, and now renewed to Alexis, ap- 
pealed to his sympathies on both civil and religious 
grounds, and received his earnest support. The conse- 
quent war with Poland, advocated by him, resulting in 
the conquest of Little Russia and its reunion to the em- 
pire, added to his influence and increased his arrogance. 

His arbitrary government, while left as regent during 
the absence of the tsar in the field, his haughtiness and 
impatience of advice in civil, as well as in ecclesiastical, 
affairs, excited the bitter animosity of the great lords 
and boyars, who submitted with ill-concealed repugnance 
to the supremacy of a low-born peasant. A double dan- 
ger threatened the all-powerful favorite — jealousy and 
hatred on the part of the great nobles and the high 
dignitaries of the Church ; superstitious fears and a holy 
horror of sacrilegious innovations on the part of an igno- 
rant and fanatical people and clergy. Reverses and dis- 
aster in foreign Avars followed the season of success, and 
the national humiliation was laid at his door ; pestilence 
and famine visited the land, and his impious tampering 
with divine institutions was cursed for bringing- God's 
wrath upon the country. The affection and confidence 
of the tsar was Nikon's only support, and this was soon 
to fail. Time, separation, and misfortune had weakened 
7 



98 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the monarch's trust and dependence upon his counsel ; 
his opposition to the Monastery Court, established by 
Alexis, and his sturdy assertion of the prerogatives of 
the Church, excited the tsar's displeasure, who began to 
chafe under the arrogance of his favorite, and to resent 
his assumption of authority ; palace intrigues under- 
mined his position, the tsaritsa joined his adversaries, 
and, jealous of his influence over her husband, artfully 
fomented the growing coolness between them. By care- 
fully-contrived and skilfully-veiled slights Mkon's im- 
petuous disposition was incited to bursts of furious indig- 
nation, rendered the more violent by the tsar's apparent 
indifference and tardy response to his complaints, and 
Alexis, himself by no means patient, grew weary of his 
intolerant and inconvenient friend. An open rupture 
was inevitable; at a state reception a follower of the 
patriarch was abused and struck by a noble of the 
court ; Mkon's demand for reparation was ignored, ad- 
mittance to the monarch denied, and the supercilious 
demeanor of the boyars, encouraged by Alexis's indiffer- 
ence, soon roused the hot anger of the impatient prelate 
to explosion. While yet smarting at this indignity, he 
was soon after reproached, at the altar, by a powerful 
lord, for his pride and presumption, whereupon, perhaps 
hoping by extreme measures to revive the sympathy of 
his former friend and protector, he doffed his pontifical 
robes for the simple garb of a monk, laid down his pas- 
toral staff, and renounced his office. Humbling himself 
before the people, he proclaimed his sins and unworthi- 
ness, sent his abdication to the tsar, craved permission to 
retire, and, covering his head with his mantle, sat down 
upon the altar steps to await a reply. Alexis was trou- 
bled, but sent no responsive message. Nikon's enemies 
triumphed, and, broken in spirit, he departed on foot to 



NIKON'S DOWNFALL.— HIS STRUGGLE FOR POWER. Q9 

the Iversky Convent, from whence he renewed his resig- 
nation of the patriarchate, begged forgiveness for his 
unauthorized absence, and asked permission to retain 
charge of the monasteries which had been under his 
control. 

The sacrifice thus made in anger he sorely repented, 
and would fain have recalled, but it was too late ; the see 
was declared vacant, his enemy, Pitirim of Novgorod, 
appointed its guardian, and Nikon was left in solitude 
to brood over his disgrace. 

Boyars and bishops, rejoicing in their liberation from 
his intolerable domineering, leagued together to com- 
plete his downfall. Fearing the influence of his personal 
intercession with the tsar, in whose heart there yet 
lurked some tenderness for his former friend, they pre- 
vented any interview, save in their presence ; they baited 
and worried the hasty, impetuous priest to fresh bursts 
of violence and temper ; his private papers were seized 
for proof of undue assumption of authority and dignity ; 
he was accused of repeating the one hundred and ninth 
psalm in his daily convent service, and of directing its 
curses against the tsar ; his indignant denials, his fierce 
invective, his vehement vindication of his acts and the 
recital of his wrongs, were made fresh pretexts for de- 
nunciation. For eight years Nikon maintained the con- 
test, with unabated energy and independence ; his spirit 
was not dismayed, nor his courage daunted ; he anathe- 
matized his adversaries for his personal insults and in- 
juries, but, more than all, for the scandal brought upon 
the Church ; he loudly asserted his loyalty, and declared, 
" I have not cursed the tsar, but I have cursed you, ye 
noble prelates of the Church ; and, if you care to hear it, 
I will have the same words sung over again in your 
ears." He could not forget that he had been, and, save 



100 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

for his own rash, act, was still patriarch of Russia, and 
he refused, by deed or word, to recognize any successor ; 
meanwhile the government of the Church was intrusted 
to a board of bishops, presided over by Paisius Ligarides, 
a Greek prelate, whom Nikon had befriended in former 
years, but who was now his bitter enemy. 

Alexis, weary of the protracted struggle, called upon 
the Eastern patriarchs to form a tribunal before which 
to arraign Nikon for trial. 

At this juncture the interposition of a friend at court 
aroused hopes of reconciliation. The boyar, Nikita Zui- 
zin, of his own authority, and trusting to the great love 
Alexis had borne the patriarch, urged him to return, with- 
out warning, on the festival of St. Peter, the first metro- 
politan of Moscow, and, ignoring the past, to invite the 
tsar to join, according to ancient custom, in the prayers 
at the cathedral. Nikon, meditating upon this sugges- 
tion, retired to rest upon the stone couch of his hermit 
cell ; as he slept he saw, in a vision, the long line of his 
predecessors rise, one by one, from their graves, at the 
call of the " wonder-worker," Jonah. Passing before 
him, they stretched out their hands, raised him up, and 
seated him on the patriarchal throne. Comforted by his 
dream, he departed secretly, by night, to Moscow, en- 
tered the cathedral of the Assumption, saluted the holy 
relics, and took his stand in the patriarch's place, clothed 
in his robes and holding the pastoral staff. The me- 
tropolitan, Jonah of Rostov, who had succeeded Pitirim 
as guardian of the see, was amazed to find him there at 
early dawn, but welcomed him with respect, and was 
sent by Nikon to the palace to announce his arrival, as 
if from a journey, and to invite the tsar to receive his 
blessing and to assist at the prayers. Alexis, taken by 
surprise, hesitated, and summoned his ministers for con- 



NIKON'S FINAL DISGRACE.— HIS TRIAL. 101 

sultation. The moment was critical, as a meeting of the 
friends under such circumstances might jeopardize all 
that had been accomplished ; to prevent it was, for Ni- 
kon's adversaries, a matter of life or death, and their in- 
fluence prevailed. The tsar refused to go to him, and 
sent orders that he should retire to the Yoskresensk 1 
Monastery, and there await the assembling of the eccle- 
siastical council. 

Nikon obeyed the harsh commands. His disgrace was 
complete, and, despairing of reconciliation with his for- 
mer patron, he endeavored, but in vain, to make terms 
with his enemies. He was shorn of all authority, and 
placed under strict supervision until the council should 
decide upon his fate. 

This assembly, the most august in the annals of the 
Church of Russia, met in the halls of the Kremlin in 
1667. The patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, eight 
metropolitans of Greek churches without the empire, the 
archbishops of Sinai and Walachia, were joined to all 
the great dignitaries of the Russian hierarchy, and the 
tsar presided in person. 

Cited to appear before them, Nikon, prior to his de- 
parture from the Yoskresensk monastery, received ex- 
treme unction, as if in presentiment of approaching 
death. Mindful of his dignity and conscious of his in- 
nocence, he entered the council-chamber, arrayed in the 
insignia of his rank, with the cross borne before him ; as 
no seat had been reserved for him with the other patri- 
archs, he refused to occupy a lower place, and, proudly 
facing his enemies with unmoved countenance, his gigan- 
tic stature towering above all around him, he remained 
standing to listen to the accusations read out by the tsar. 

' Convent of the Resurrection. 



102 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

He was charged with tyranny and oppression, with arbi- 
trary and illegal exercise of power, with interference in 
matters beyond his province, with malversation of eccle- 
siastical revenues, with capricious abandonment of his 
office, with frivolously preventing the election of a patri- 
arch after his own abdication, with offending the majesty 
of the sovereign and calumniating the clergy, thus bring- 
ing disorder upon the State and scandal upon the Church. 
For the first time in eight years the two friends stood 
again face to face, and Alexis's heart was moved with 
pity and compassion. As he read the long list of accu- 
sations, tears flowed from his eyes, at the recollection of 
their former friendship and loving intercourse ; yielding 
to his emotion, he descended from the throne, and, to the 
consternation of the hostile assemblage, took Nikon by 
the hand, and earnestly abjured him : " Oh, most holy 
father, why hast thou put upon me such a reproach, pre- 
paring thyself for the council as if for death ? Thinkest 
thou that I have forgotten all thy services to me, and to 
my family, during the plague, and our former friendship f 9 
The danger of reconciliation at the last hour seemed im- 
minent, and the affecting scene was interrupted by vio- 
lent denunciations on the part of the patriarch's ene- 
mies, anxious to destroy the effect of tender memories 
of the past. Nikon was speedily aroused to anger, and, 
in the bitterness of his heart, gave full course to his in- 
dignation, loudly denying the charges brought against 
him, and vehemently asserting the duties and preroga- 
tives of his office ; he fiercely inveighed against his ac- 
cusers, and defied them to prove aught against him. 
" Why not bid them take up stones ? so they might soon 
put an end to me, but not with words, though they 
should spend nine years more in collecting them." The 
critical moment had passed, and the threatening danger 



NIKON CONDEMNED.— HIS SENTENCE. 103 

was averted by the tumult ; although the deliberations 
of the assembly continued for many days, Alexis and 
Nikon parted then never to meet again. 

The pri mate's condemnation was a foregone conclu- 
sion ; he was sentenced to be degraded from his rank to 
the condition of a simple monk, and to do penance in a 
distant monastery for the remainder of his life. Alexis 
refused to witness his humiliation, and the council assem- 
bled, for the last time, in a small church, beyond the pre- 
cincts of the palace. When summoned to hear its decis- 
ion, Nikon still maintained his proud and lofty bearing ; 
" Why," said he, " do you degrade me in this little chap- 
el, without the presence of the tsar, and not in the cathe- 
dral, where he and you implored me to ascend the throne ?" 
He reproached the Eastern patriarchs for their mean sub- 
serviency to power, in expectation of reward; "Take 
these," said he, stripping pearls from his vestments, 
which they removed in pursuance of the sentence; 
" they will help support you under Turkish oppression ; 
get you home ; better stay there than go wandering like 
beggars about the world." 

It was midwinter, and the place of his banishment was 
far distant ; the tsar sent him money and furs for the 
journey, and asked his forgiveness and blessing ; but the 
indomitable prelate sternly refused all gifts, and with- 
held his benediction. "He loveth not blessing, and 
therefore it shall be far from him," was his reply. To 
a noble, who mockingly swept up the dust he shook from 
his feet, he said, pointing to a comet then flaming in the 
sky — the broom-star, as it is called in Kussian — " God's 
besom shall sweep you all away." 

To the people, who, in spite of prejudices against his 
reforms, reverenced him for the holiness and austerity of 
his life, and, pressing round, urgently besought his bless- 



104 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ing, he, like the martyred Philip, spoke but a single 
word, "Pray." Still retaining his pontifical staff and 
mantle, which the patriarchs, " for fear of the people," 
had not ventured to take from him, sheltered from the 
cold by a cloak thrown over him by a pitying bystander, 
he was hurried away to close confinement in the Thera- 
pontoff Monastery, on the bleak shores of the "White 
Lake. 

Nikon's career marks a great epoch in the history of 
the Russian Church. 

His purpose and aim have been variously estimated ; 
loudly extolled as a reformer and saint, he has been as 
severely condemned as an ambitious and narrow-minded 
bigot. An impartial study of his fife would seem to 
show that he was animated by a double motive, and ad- 
dressed the wonderful energies of his powerful genius to 
a double end. On the one hand, to the reformation of 
the Church by purifying it from error, by endeavoring 
to impart spiritual life to the whole fabric, while restor- 
ing its ceremonies and ritual, and by elevating the char- 
acter of the clergy in morals and intelligence ; on the 
other, to the liberation of the Church from civil control 
by freeing it from debasing subjection and submission, 
in spiritual matters, to the temporal power, and by as- 
serting its independence within its special domain. 

The whole course and practice of Nikon's life bear ev- 
idence to his solicitude for reform in, and of, the Church ; 
in this cause his zeal knew no languor, and only the un- 
tiring perseverance and savage energy he displayed, only 
the granite-like obduracy and firmness of purpose he 
evinced, could hope to triumph over the besotted igno- 
rance, prejudice, and superstition he encountered. His 
personal example as priest, prelate, and pontiff, the se- 
verity of the discipline he shared and enforced, the re- 



NIKON'S CAREER.— HIS TURPOSE AND ITS RESULTS. 1Q5 

forms he inaugurated, his encouragement of learning, 
are recognized, and his lofty conception of the mission 
and prerogatives of the Church is stated boldly, and with 
rugged eloquence, in his voluminous replies to the council. 
"While recognizing the duty of submission, in all tem- 
poral matters, to constituted authority, he earnestly main- 
tained the independence of the Church in spiritual affairs. 
He appealed to the ancient ordinances of the " apostle-like" 
Vladimir, re-enacted by successive tsars, and confirmed 
even by Tatar khans. Taking higher ground, he averred 
that "the pontificate is more honorable and a greater 
principality than the empire itself ; . . . the priest is seated 
very much higher than the king. For, though the throne 
of the tsar may appear honorable from the precious 
stones set in it and the gold with which it is overlaid, 
nevertheless they are only the things of the earth, which 
he has received power to administer, and beyond this he 
has no power whatever. But the throne of the priest- 
hood is set in heaven ; . . . and the priest stands between 
God and human nature, as drawing down from heaven 
graces unto us, carrying up from us utterances of prayer 
to heaven, reconciling Him, when He is angry, to our com- 
mon nature, and delivering us, when we have offended, 
out of His hand. For these causes kings themselves, 
also, are anointed by the hands of the priests, but not 
priests by the hands of kings, and the head itself of the 
king is put by God under the hands of His priests, show- 
ing us that the priest is a greater authority than the 
king, for the lesser is blessed by the greater. ... Is the 
tsar the head of the Church? No! The head of the 
Church is Christ. . . . The tsar neither is, nor can be, the 
head of the Church, but is as one of the members, and 
on this account he can do nothing whatever in the 
Church. . . . Where is there any word of Christ that the 



106 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

tsar is to have power over the Church ? . . . The tsar has 
committed to him the things of this earth, but I have 
committed to me the things of heaven." 1 He vehe- 
mently assailed the Monastery Court, instituted by Alex- 
is, establishing lay jurisdiction over the clergy and Church 
property, as illegal by the ancient ordinances of the 
empire, and unrighteous by the canons of the Church. 
Discussing the possible conflict of authority, he declares : 
" In spiritual things, which belong to the glory of God, 
the bishop is higher than the tsar, for so only can he 
maintain the spiritual jurisdiction. But in those things 
which belong to the province of this world the tsar is 
higher, and so they will be in no opposition, the one 
against the other." 

The man fell a victim to bigotry, ignorance, malevo- 
lence, and jealousy, but of his work much, though the 
least valuable portion, remained. The council which 
sent him into banishment acknowledged, by its acts, the 
purity and orthodoxy of his faith, and, after electing 
Joasaph II. archimandrite of the Trinity Monastery, to 
fill the vacant patriarchate, it established authoritatively 
the changes introduced by Mkon, and annulled the de- 
cisions of the Council of the Hundred Chapters, which 
for many years had been a fruitful source and support 
of error. A few years later, during the succeeding reign, 
the Monastery Court was abolished, and the patriarchal 
tribunal re-established. But the power of inveterate hab- 
it and the force of prejudice are great, and the attach- 
ment of the people and of many of the clergy to their 
ancient forms was stronger than the enactments of the 
assembly, though backed by all the authority of the civil 
power. Teachers of false doctrine, pretending to be de- 

1 "The Patriarch and the Tsar," pp. 127, 251, 292. 



BEGINNING OF DISSENT. 107 

fenders of the old national religion, disseminated their 
heresies throughout the empire, at lirst in secret, then 
openly, as they met with widespread sympathy. 

Internal disorders, revolt in Little Russia, unsuccess- 
ful wars, and the consequent heavy burdens laid upon 
the people, aggravated the ferment of religious discon- 
tent. Numerous sects, asserting a purer Orthodoxy, ar- 
rayed themselves in opposition to the national Church ; 
the most dangerous of these sectarian movements was 
that among the population about the White Sea ; its ad- 
herents, called " Pomorians," or " Dwellers by the sea- 
shore," gathered around the great fortress convent of 
Solovetsk as their stronghold. This brotherhood of ig- 
norant monks, isolated in their wintry home, had ever 
been noted for their fanatical devotion to ancient forms ; 
they had, in previous reigns, remonstrated against, and 
refused to accept, changes ordered by Church authority, 
and now, with overweening confidence in the strength 
of their walls and the number of their partisans, they 
ventured upon open rebellion, and for ten years defied 
the power of the tsar ; though finally, and by force, re- 
duced to submission, their heretical doctrines spread 
through the North and into Siberia. 

Three patriarchs — Joasaph II., Pitirim, and Joachim — 
followed in rapid succession on the throne, each hostile 
to Nikon ; but time had softened the resentment of the 
sovereign. Rebellious chieftains had falsely claimed the 
influence of Nikon's name under which to shelter their 
pretensions, but Alexis disbelieved all accusations against 
his loyalty, and, in compassion, greatly mitigated the se- 
verity of his punishment. AVhen dying, the tsar sent to 
crave his full forgiveness, and, at Alexis's death, Nikon 
wept bitterly, and mourned the loss of his friend. " The 
will of God be done," he exclaimed; "what though he 



108 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

never saw me, to make our farewell peace here, we shall 
meet and be judged together at the terrible coming of 
Christ." x 

Under Alexis's son, Feodor III., the malignity of Ni- 
kon's enemies revived, and the full rigor of his sentence 
was enforced. The young tsar was Nikon's godson; 
but, weak and sickly, he was easily swayed by his spir- 
itual advisers, and left the unhappy prelate, broken by 
suffering and disappointment, to languish in solitary con- 
finement. A revulsion of f eeling was, however, aroused 
in the prince's breast by the contemplation of the great 
Church establishments projected and commenced by 
Nikon, but now abandoned and falling to decay. A 
few friends who still remembered him ventured to raise 
their voices in his behalf. Among them was Simon Po- 
lotsky, in Feodor's youth his preceptor, in after-life his 
friend and counsellor. Polotsky was a wise and erudite 
monk, of liberal and advanced ideas, without sympathy 
with the harsh and bigoted patriarch Joachim. He was 
filled with admiration for the genius of the great re- 
former, and shared his aspirations for the glory of the 
Church. He appreciated the power which unity and 
centralization gave the Eoman Church, and conceived 
the plan of a similar consolidation in the Russian estab- 
lishment by raising the four metropolitan sees to patri- 
archates, and placing Nikon over all as supreme pontiff. 

The scheme was too visionary, and too much at vari- 
ance with the spirit of the Greek Church, for realization, 
but Polotsky's efforts for Nikon s restoration to favor 
were happily timed, and found quick response in the 
tsar's reawakened affection for his godfather. 

Nikon, conscious of failing strength, had long and 

1 Mouravief, p. 243. 



NIKON'S DEATH. 109 

earnestly sought permission to return to his favorite 
monastery of Voskresensk, the " New Jerusalem," and 
there end his days. 

Feodor granted this request, and the primate Joachim 
yielded a reluctant assent. 

The dying patriarch's journey was a triumphal pro- 
cession. As his barge dropped slowly down the Volga, 
the people pressed into the stream to crave his blessing. 
From the monasteries, which crown the high banks of 
the river, the brethren came forth to greet him with 
prayers and chants. Sergius, once his bitter enemy, and 
now, in disgrace, sentenced to reclusion, heard, in a dream, 
Nikon's voice calling him, " Brother Sergius, arise, let us 
forgive and take leave of each other ;" and, hastening to 
the water-side, asked forgiveness on his knees. " The 
citizens of Yaroslav, hearing of his arrival, crowded to 
the river, and, seeing the old man lying on his couch all 
but dead, threw themselves down before him with tears, 
kissing his hands and his garments, and begging his bless- 
ing. Some towed the barge along the shore, others threw 
themselves into the water to assist them, and thus they 
drew it in and moored it against the monastery of the 
' All-merciful Saviour.' Just then the bells were struck 
for evening prayer. Nikon was at the point of death. 
Suddenly he turned and looked about, as if some one 
had come to call him, and then arranged his hair, beard, 
and dress for himself, as if in preparation for his last and 
longest journey. The brethren, standing round, recited 
the prayers for the dying, and the patriarch, stretching 
himself out to his full length on the couch, and laying his 
hands crosswise upon his breast, gave one sigh, and de- 
parted from this world in peace." ' 

1 Mouravief, p. 246. 



HO THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Joachim's enmity did not cease at the grave, and, un- 
der plea of Nikon's degradation, he refused to render 
episcopal honors to his remains. It required the tsar's 
interference to check these manifestations of clerical ma- 
lignity, and, at his command, Cornelius, Metropolitan of 
Novgorod, officiated at the burial. The monarch him- 
self helped bear the body to its last resting-place, on the 
spot which Nikon had chosen, and, subsequently, he ob- 
tained from the four oecumenical patriarchs letters of 
absolution for Nikon's soul. 

Over the tomb are hanging still the iron cross and 
heavy chains he wore upon his body, and Eussian pil- 
grims venerate his shrine as a holy place, although sol- 
emn condemnation was passed upon him by a council of 
almost oecumenical dignity. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Reunion of the Polish to the Russian Church.— Dissent.— Peter the 
Great and his Successors. — Substitution of the Holy Synod for the 
Patriarchate. — Absorption of the Unia by the Russian Church. — Re- 
forms. 

During Feodor's short reign energetic measures were 
devised to arrest the progress of heretical and dissent- 
ing opinions, which had taken deep root among the 
peasants and lower classes. Strong efforts were made 
for the dissemination of education, as the most efficient 
mode of combating false doctrines, hut they ceased at 
Feodor's death, when the country was again plunged 
into confusion by the disputed succession. 

The patriarch Joachim favored Peter, to the exclusion 
of his imbecile elder brother Ivan, and the bloody strug- 
gles of rival factions resulted in the joint government of 
the two, with their sister Sophia as regent. 

The period of Sophia's regency was signalized by the 
reunion of the Orthodox Churches of Little Eussia and 
Poland to that of the empire. 

"When Little Russia was brought under the sway of 
Alexis, its Orthodox clergy, and that of Poland, assert- 
ed their affiliation with Constantinople, preferring a 
nominal dependency upon a distant see to real subjec- 
tion under a powerful neighbor. Anarchy and intes- 
tine strife in succeeding years, aggravated in Little 
Eussia by Polish invasion, were accompanied by dis- 
sensions in the Church. Eival prelates, supported by 



112 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

different factions, and each claiming ecclesiastical sov- 
ereignty, maintained their independence of Moscow. 

The Eussian patriarchs appointed guardians of the see 
of Kiev, but their authority was ignored. 

To heal these divisions, and to settle the question of 
supremacy by an authoritative decision, reference was 
made to the Byzantine patriarch. The ecclesiastical 
dispute was decided simultaneously with the pacifica- 
tion of the Ukraine under the Hetman Samuelovitch, 
and its cession, with Kiev, to Russia by John Sobiesky, 
in 1685, as the price of her neutrality in his wars with 
the Turks. A formal decree from Constantinople united 
the Orthodox Churches of Russia and Poland under the 
see of Moscow, and terminated their separation of two 
centuries and a half. 

This auspicious event was, however, followed by un- 
fortunate and unforeseen consequences to the Polish 
establishment. Shorn of the comparative independence 
it had so long enjoyed, and insufficiently protected by 
Russia, it gradually lost energy and vitality, and yielded 
to the surrounding pressure. The government, jealous 
of any control by a foreign pontiff over its dioceses, en- 
deavored to supplant Orthodox prelates by others of the 
Catholic or Uniate creeds. Its efforts were crowned 
with success, and eventually but a single Orthodox bish- 
op remained in the realm. From the people, deprived 
of their spiritual advisers and exposed to unremitting 
and persistent persecution, nearly every trace of Ortho- 
doxy disappeared, save among the peasantry of the more 
remote districts. 

In Russia, meanwhile, the absence of a firm and set- 
tled government, and the disorder consequent upon the 
strife of rival factions greatly facilitated the growth and 
development of religious dissensions among the people. 



GROWTH OF DISSENT.— ITS POLITICAL ASPECT. 113 

Although they were subjected to strict supervision, and 
all overt manifestations were suppressed by force, the 
feeling, among them, of hostility to the innovations inau- 
gurated by Nikon had spread throughout the empire. 
The superior clergy, who generally accepted the reforms 
and were in sympathy with the nobles, treated the vil- 
lage priests, who were recruited chiefly among the peo- 
ple and shared their feelings, with arrogance and con- 
tempt. This aggravated the popular discontent, which, 
in turn, reacted upon the minor clergy. The prevalent 
and increasing dissatisfaction of the low T er classes was 
fostered by unscrupulous and designing men in further- 
ance of their ambitious ends. The inveterate hatred of 
Russians for everything foreign was, notwithstanding 
the Greek origin of their Church, artfully fomented 
against innovations brought from Constantinople and 
against their advocates. In all the schemes and in- 
trigues, in all the insurrectionary and political move- 
ments of those troublous times, the element of relig- 
ious discord played an important part. Discontent and 
Dissent, acting and reacting, grew into a formidable po- 
litical power, dangerous and threatening, even to the 
stability of the government. 

The only military organization existing in Russia was 
that of the " Streltsi," ' an irregular kind of national 
guard, first created under Ivan IV. It w^as officered 
exclusively by Russians, and was largely recruited from 
among the people, with whom, as a body, it was in gen- 
eral accord, especially in dislike for everything of a 
foreign origin or nature. This turbulent militia, ever 
clamoring for whatever they deemed national or Rus- 
sian, sympathized with the popular attachment to the 

1 From Streiets, meaning archer or bowman. 



114 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 



old forms and ceremonies of religions worship; they 
joined the outcry raised against the changes introduced 
into the Church service as being heresies, subversive of 
the true faith, and demanded a return to ancient custom. 

In order to check the prevalent dissatisfaction, which 
ever and anon found seditious expression, the authorities 
consented to a public disputation upon the points in con- 
troversy. Nikita, formerly a priest, then a dissenter, and 
who, under threat of punishment, had recanted and again 
relapsed, led the popular side ; but the meeting, convened 
with due solemnity in presence of the tsars and the re- 
gent, with the patriarch and clergy, ended in a noisy 
riot, put down with a strong hand. The Streltsi, over- 
awed by display of force, and cajoled by promises, aban- 
doned NiMta, with his adherents, to their fate. He, and 
many of his disciples, were executed and order restored. 
Notwithstanding vigorous measures of repression, the 
great mass of the people were infested with the poison of 
Dissent ; sect after sect arose, each with its local follow- 
ing and peculiarities, but all professing, as their single 
common bond of union, opposition to reform and to the 
established Church, as having fallen away from the an- 
cient and true faith. 

As Peter grew to man's estate, a giant in mind and 
body, his haughty, imperious nature could ill brook a 
divided authority. Sophia was equally ambitious, and 
incited the Streltsi to rise in her behalf. Peter, warned 
in season, fled to the Troi'tsa monastery, where already, 
when a boy of ten years of age, he had, with his mother 
Natalia, found protection against rebellious subjects. 
There the patriarch and his clergy, together with the 
loyal nobles, rallied to his support. The insurrectionary 
movement was checked and Sophia was deposed. 

Ten years after, in 1698, this wild and undisciplined 



REIGN OF PETER THE. GREAT. H5 

soldiery again raised the standard of revolt. Peter was 
absent from Russia, but, hurrying back, he abolished the 
institution, and wreaked such fearful and bloody ven- 
geance upon the rebels as to call forth remonstrance, " in 
the name of the Mother of God," from Adrian, who was 
then patriarch. " Get thee home," was the fierce reply ; 
" know that I reverence God and his most Holy Mother 
more earnestly perhaps than thou dost. It is the duty 
of my sovereign office, and a duty that I owe to God, to 
save my people from harm, and to prosecute, with direst 
severity, crimes that tend to the common ruin." His im- 
patience of control and his growing determination to 
break down all opposition, even that of the Church, to 
his will, were thus early made manifest. 

The patriarch Joachim died in 1690 ; although a life- 
long enemy of Nikon, he, with the higher clergy, had 
accepted the changes in the Church service -which Nikon 
introduced, but he shared the general dislike felt by 
all Russians of high and low degree for foreigners, and 
mourned the tsar's deplorable predilection for their soci- 
ety. His opposition to them, otherwise unavailing, was 
successfully exercised against teachers of foreign relig- 
ions ; the toleration hitherto extended to Calvinists and 
Lutherans was greatly restricted; Catholics were pro- 
hibited from celebrating mass in public ; the Jesuits were 
banished ; and Germans, accused of disseminating false 
and blasphemous doctrines, were burned at the stake. 
He left testamentary admonitions to the tsar, urging 
him to drive from Russia all heretics and unbelievers, 
enemies of the Orthodox faith, and to destroy their 
places of worship. His administration of the Church 
was characterized by decision and energy, and, notwith- 
standing the growth of Dissent and the influx of foreign 
ideas, its power and the extent of its sway was largely 



116 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

increased. Its conquests followed those of the State, 
and spread Christianity to the farthest regions of East- 
ern Siberia ; a bishopric was established at Irkutsk, and 
the incumbent, Innocentius Koulchinsky, was head of a 
church mission to Pekin. In 1684 a garrison of four hun- 
dred Cossacks defended a frontier fortress at Albasin, on 
the river Amoor, with such distinguished bravery that 
their survivors, when compelled by starvation to capitu- 
late, were granted their lives and were settled in Pekin, 
with permission from the Emperor of China to retain 
their religion and to receive priests of their Church from 
Kussia. Descendants of this captive colony of Christians 
exist in Pekin at the present day. 

Peter was but eighteen years of age, and the gigantic 
schemes which were to immortalize his name, and trans- 
form the empire, were still ideas or aspirations vaguely 
conceived, without having as yet assumed in his mind 
definite shape and proportion. He did not then proba- 
bly realize the importance for his plans which attached 
to the choice of a head for the Church, and while prefer- 
ring Marcellus, Metropolitan of Pskov, a " learned and civ- 
ilized " person, he acquiesced in the selection of Adrian, 
Metropolitan of Kasan, an aged prelate, narrow-minded, 
strongly imbued with antiquated and national prejudices, 
the favorite of the lower clergy, and of what may even then 
be considered as the old Russian party. He was a rigid 
Churchman, and during his pontificate the confession of 
Peter Mogila, which had been generally received in Rus- 
sia, was formally adopted as embodying the doctrines 
and belief of the Church. His influence was in constant 
opposition to the wishes of the tsar; Western habits, 
which Peter was eager to follow, were an abomination 
in his sight ; the use of tobacco, the wearing of foreign 
apparel, he condemned as sinful ; by a decree in due form 



PETER THE GIIEAT.-IIIS TRAVELS.-REFORMS. H7 

he anathematized all who shaved their beards, an " orna- 
ment given by God to man, whom He created in His own 
image, which had been worn by all the holy prophets 
and apostles, by the saints of the Church, and by our 
Saviour Himself." 

Peter's growing determination to bring his people 
within the pale of Western civilization was strengthened 
by his travels. He was the first tsar who had left Rus- 
sia since Isiaslav took refuge in Germany with the em- 
peror Henry, in 1073. On his return from foreign coun- 
tries Peter applied himself vigorously to his task, with 
haughty disregard of edicts of his predecessors, of de- 
crees of patriarchs, and of ancient customs. 

The social and civil changes he first introduced struck 
a fatal blow at the most cherished prejudices, and at the 
religious belief of his people. They were followed by 
others more radical and fundamental, as well in the 
Church as in the body politic. 

During his travels he had examined for himself the 
different religious s} T stems of Western Europe. He had 
listened to Protestant preaching in Holland, to exhorta- 
tions of Quakers and of Anglican divines in England, 
and, in Austria and Poland, had lent an apparently will- 
ing ear to arguments of Catholic priests in favor of a 
union of the Greek and Latin Churches, but alwa} T s with- 
out conviction as to his religious belief . Gilbert Burnet, 
Bishop of Salisbury, judged him accurately in his shrewd 
remark, "that he was anxious to understand our doc- 
trines, but he did not seem disposed to mend matters in 
Muscovy." 

The Catholic prelates felt more encouragement, and 
the papal nuncio at Vienna reported to Rome that Peter 
had evinced a desire to be received into the bosom of the 
true Church. With them, however, the wish was father 



118 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

to the thought. "While he evidently inclined to tolera- 
tion, he violently resented any reflection, in his hearing, 
upon the Orthodox Church. At Mitau he attended mass, 
and a Polish senator ventured to urge upon him the 
union of the Greek and Eoman Churches, but Peter re- 
plied : " Sovereigns have rights only over the bodies of 
their people ; Christ is the sovereign of their souls. For 
such a thing a general consent is necessary, and that is 
in the power of God alone." Whatever may have been 
Peter's intentions towards the Church, in its relations to 
the State, he had no wish to disturb the religious belief 
of the people. 

The patriarch, Adrian, died in 1T00, at the moment 
when Peter was engaged in remodelling the national 
code, and in establishing clear distinctions between civil 
and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The election of a suc- 
cessor was postponed by the tsar's orders, upon pretext 
of his absence with the army, and probably also on ac- 
count of his solicitude that the choice should hot, while 
he was away, fall upon a prelate hostile to his views. As 
a temporary measure, Stephen Yavorsky, Metropolitan of 
Riazan, a man of great learning, ability, and prudence, 
was named guardian of the see, with the title of Exarch. 

The reorganization of the ecclesiastical administration 
was speedily commenced. Questions of theology, and of 
Church discipline, were reserved to the patriarchal tribu- 
nal, but the charge of the property and of the material 
interests of the Church, together with general supervis- 
ion over clerical affairs, was confided to the "Depart- 
ment of the Monasteries," created for the purpose. 

The religious establishments in Russia were very nu- 
merous and very wealthy ; many were very ancient, with 
exclusive and peculiar privileges, dating back anterior to 
any codified laws. There were in all 557 monasteries 






CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS.— CLERGY.— REFORM& H9 

and convents, whose vast possessions comprised 130,000 
peasant houses and many hundreds of thousands of serfs ; 
the richest was the great Troi'tsa monastery, near Mos- 
cow, which owned :i0,400 houses and upwards of 100,000 
serfs, representing, at the present time, a value of nearly 
four millions sterling ; ' then came the official property 
of the patriarchate, which was reckoned at 8900 houses, 
and that of the see of Rostov, comprising 4400 houses, 
with proportionate numbers of serfs. 

The Department of the Monasteries Avas empowered 
to take charge of, and manage, this enormous property 
for the general good of the Church, paying an annual 
sum to each establishment for the support of its inmates. 

The thriftless and lazy thronged in and about religious 
communities in order to enjoy an easy and comfortable 
existence, and to secure exemption from military service. 
To remedy this evil, really serious from the sparseness 
of the population, the number of residents in each insti- 
tution was prescribed by law, and stringent regulations 
were enacted for entrance to religious life. It was pro- 
hibited to minors — to such as could not read nor write — 
to those of noble birth, and to all in the employment of 
the State. The limit of age for admission was fixed at 
thirty years for monks and at forty for nuns, and the 
previous consent of the tsar was necessary. The in- 
mates of each establishment were compelled to remain 
within its walls, and were subjected to rigid observance 
of strict monastic discipline. Allowances and salaries 
were assigned to the higher spiritual authorities in lieu 
of their estates, and of the dues hitherto exacted from 
the parishes. The surplus income of the fund was to be 
devoted to charitable objects and military hospitals, and 
finally to the current necessities of the State. 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 72. 



120 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

The measure was calculated to elevate the character 
of the whole religious body, and, by depriving it of its 
worldly superfluity, to purify its ranks of the army of 
parasites and mendicants fattening upon it in sloth and 
ignorance. It was, however, practically, one of confisca- 
tion, and, together with strict enforcement of discipline, 
it caused very great discontent among the clergy, whose 
persistent and bitter opposition delayed its thorough ex- 
ecution until the reign of Catherine II. Clerical jeal- 
ousy was also aroused by the reorganization of the 
Academy of Moscow, where the introduction of foreign 
teachers, and of professors from Kiev, was rendered neces- 
sary by the incapacity and ignorance of the native clergy. 

Yavorsky was indefatigable in his efforts to regenerate 
and reform the Church, and was at first assured of the 
friendship and support of the tsar, but he was dismayed 
at the storm of opposition he encountered, by the clash- 
ing of conflicting authorities, by quarrelling between the 
monastic department and the patriarchal court ; he was, 
moreover, subsequently discouraged by frequent differ- 
ences with the sovereign, for whom the Church was 
rather a powerful political lever than an institution of 
peculiar sanctity. To share and lighten his labors there 
were, fortunately for Peter's plans, a few noble and dis- 
interested men who could appreciate the wisdom of the 
changes inaugurated ; who could rise above the narrow- 
minded bigotry of their clerical brethren and the preju- 
dices of the day, to become able and zealous coadjutors 
in the great reformatory work. The archimandrite 
Dimitri brought to its support his earnest piety, pro- 
found learning, and historical research ; he is famous in 
the annals of the Church for his " Lives of the Saints," 
which is still a religious classic, and has himself been 
canonized ; his writings, aimed especially against the 



TOLERATION OF FOREIGN RELIGIONS. 121 

fallacies of Dissent, and intended to expose and dispel its 
errors, were widely disseminated. Job, Metropolitan of 
Novgorod, lavished the revenues of his see on establish- 
ments of benevolence and charity, and on institutions of 
learning ; he created a school for the higher education 
of the clergy, and by his influence obtained the release 
from confinement of many victims of clerical intolerance 
and jealousy. Metrophanes, Bishop of Yoronege, the last 
saint added to the Kussian calendar, was animated by a 
spirit of unselfish patriotism. By exhortation and ex- 
ample he allayed the discontent of the peasantry of his 
diocese, who were impatient of the burdens imposed 
upon them, and induced them to labor willingly on the 
construction of the fleet which Peter destined for an at- 
tack upon Azov. His bold and fearless character was 
singularly attractive to the rough-and-ready tsar, whose 
irregularities and extravagances he did not hesitate to 
chide, while he proved his loyalty and devotion by the 
sacrifice of his private fortune to help relieve the press- 
ing necessities of the government. 

In 1702 Peter issued his famous manifesto inviting 
foreigners to Kussia, and establishing the principle of 
religious toleration. He declared therein that, " as in 
our residence of Moscow the free exercise of religion of 
all other sects, although not agreeing with our Church, 
is already allowed, so shall this be hereby confirmed 
anew in such wise that we, by the power granted to us 
by the Almighty, shall exercise no compulsion over the 
consciences of men, and shall gladly allow every Chris- 
tian to care for his own salvation at his own risk." ■ 

The toleration shown by the tsar to foreign religions 
was not extended to Jews or to native Dissenters. 

1 Schuyler, vol. ii., p. 141. 



122 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

The latter had increased in numbers as a result of the 
changes and innovations introduced in the State and 
Church ; they enjoyed, at times, a precarious immunity 
as a consequence of the constant wars in which Peter 
was involved. "When not engaged in weightier matters, 
he pursued them with relentless severity ; less, however, 
from any religious motive, than from a stern determina- 
tion to crush all opposition to his reforms. 

Fanaticism grew with persecution ; discontent among 
the people became hatred of the oppressor, and the tra- 
ditional veneration for the tsar turned to pious horror. 
Serious outbreaks, which required a strong force for 
their repression, occurred in different parts of the empire, 
and even in Moscow. The frontiers of Poland and Li- 
vonia, the neighborhood of the great lakes, the marshes 
of Olonetz, the wilds of Perm and Siberia, the shores of 
the White Sea, the forests of Nijni-Novgorod, the banks 
of the Yolga and of the Don, were thronged with colo- 
nies of schismatics, all at variance one with another, and 
proclaiming doctrines as extravagant as their enthusiasm 
was fervid, but all animated by a fanaticism stronger 
than death. Thousands left their homes to perish in 
the wilderness ; whole families deliberately sought vol- 
untary martyrdom in the flames of their burning houses, 
kindled by their own hands. 

Against the fervor of this popular spiritual uprising 
the efforts of the Church and the power of the State 
were exerted in vain. Dissent was rooted in the hearts 
of the people, never again to be extirpated. 

The relations between the tsar and the exarch were 
no longer harmonious. Peter was exacting and arbi- 
trary, impatient of clerical control, and inclined to use 
ecclesiastical patronage in furtherance of his political 
plans. Yavorsky, while faithful and loyal, was indepen- 



INCREASE OF DISSENT.— THE SORBONNE. 123 

clent, and rigid in his devotion to the Church. A new 
favorite supplanted him at court. Feofan Procopo- 
vitch attracted Peter's attention by his eloquence, and 
ingratiated himself by his wily and insinuating address. 
He preached absolute submission to the monarch's will, 
advocated his reformatory measures, and defended his 
private character. In the grievous dissensions between 
Peter and the tsarevitch Alexis, he energetically sup- 
ported the father, while Yavorsky sympathized with the 
son. Procopovitch had studied under the Jesuits at 
Rome, and his religious convictions had varied with his 
prospects of advancement ; alternately Orthodox, Uniate, 
and again Orthodox, his latitudinarian opinions were 
suspicious to Yavorsky, who accused him of heresy, and 
arraigned him before a council of the Church. By the 
tsar's favor he issued triumphantly from this trial, and 
Yavorsky, in comparative disgrace, was ordered to re- 
move to the new capital, St. Petersburg. 

When Peter was at Paris, in 1717, the theologians of 
the Sorbonne made him proposals for a union of the 
Greek and Latin Churches. They dwelt at length upon 
the general accord of their doctrines and sacraments, 
and on the similarity of their ecclesiastical discipline; 
they made light of the dogma of the Double Proces- 
sion, instancing the creed of the Uniates, which, with 
the pope's assent, ignored it; and they laid still less 
stress upon recognition of the pope's supremacy, ad- 
ducing the independence and liberties of the Gallican 
Church. 

Procopovitch prepared the reply to these proposals. 
It declared that the Kussian bishops could not venture 
to decide alone so momentous a question, which con- 
cerned the whole Church universal ; it should be submit- 
ted to a general conclave, in which the Eastern patii- 



124 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

archs should take part, and, meanwhile, any close connec- 
tion of their own with a foreign Church might seriously 
endanger the ancient unity of the Orthodox communion. 

A similar movement towards union with the Rus- 
sian Church was made by the English clergy, but it 
also proved abortive, and was again revived some years 
later. 

In spite of all opposition, Peter had accomplished the 
cherished aim of his ambition, and given Russia her- fit- 
ting place among the powers of the civilized world. 
Satisfied with the result of his changes in the constitu- 
tion and government of the State, he turned his atten- 
tion to the Church. For many years it had been de- 
prived of its official head, and was administered by an 
authority, originally instituted as a temporary expedi- 
ent, but which was no longer equal to the emergency. 
He was also pressed to a definite settlement of the eccle- 
siastical question by the urgent solicitations of the met- 
ropolitan Yavorsky, still guardian of the patriarchate, 
who, waxing old and no longer possessing the full confi- 
dence of the emperor, was anxious to be relieved from 
the increasing cares and responsibilities of the office. 

To intrust the full power and influence of the Church 
to a single individual seemed a measure fraught with 
danger, and Peter was reluctant to feel again, by the 
side of the throne, a personal authority almost equal to 
his own, in a degree beyond control, and possibly antag- 
onistic. The creation of a senate, the establishment of 
colleges, or boards of commissioners, for the administra- 
tion of civil affairs, had proved successful ; he had seen, 
in Protestant countries, the possibility of applying a sim- 
ilar form of government to the Church, and he deter- 
mined to adopt it in Russia. 

To Feofan Procopovitch, under his personal super- 



CHANGES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 125 

vision, was confided the preparation of "The Spiritual 
Regulation," as the basis of the new reform. 

It was put in force in 172 1 , and the motives which guided 
the emperor in his decision are thus plainly expressed in 
the document itself: "From the collegiate government 
in the Church there is not so much danger to the country 
of disturbances and troubles as may be produced by one 
spiritual ruler, for the common people do not understand 
the difference between the spiritual power and that of 
the autocrat ; but, dazzled by the splendor and glory of 
the highest pastor, they think that he is a second sover- 
eign of like powers with the autocrat, or even with more, 
and that the spiritual power is that of another and a 
better realm. If, then, there should be any difference of 
opinion between the patriarch and the tsar, it might easi- 
ly happen that the people, perhaps led by designing per- 
sons, should take the part of the patriarch, in the belief 
that they were fighting for God's cause, and that it was 
necessary to stand by Him." 

The supreme power of the Church was vested in a 
body, at first termed " the Spiritual College," and which 
was afterwards, and still is, designated as "The Most 
Holy Governing Synod." It was originally composed 
of ten members chosen from the different ranks of the 
clerical hierarchy, and, subsequently, the number was re- 
duced to eight. To its charge were committed the ad- 
ministration of all the estates of the Church ; the elec- 
tion of bishops ; supreme jurisdiction over all the clergy, 
save in capital cases, and over all matters of heresy, 
schism, marriage, divorce, and Church discipline. 

The " Spiritual Regulation" was submitted to a council 
convened at Moscow, comprising the highest dignitaries 
of the Church and the State. Notwithstanding- the hos- 
tility of the old Russian party, and the objections urged 



126 THE KUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

by many prelates, who preferred the maintenance of the 
patriarchate, the authority of the tsar bore down all op- 
position, and the measure was approved. Yavorsky was 
made president of the Synod, with Feodoce'i Yanovsky 
and Feofan Procopovitch as vice-presidents. 

The new institution was announced to the patriarch 
of Constantinople in an autograph letter from the tsar, 
setting forth the necessities of the Russian Church and 
the reasons which had dictated a change in its form of 
government. He expressed the hope that the Synod 
might receive the recognition of the Eastern patriarchs, 
and ever maintain, in close communion with them, the 
ancient unity of the Orthodox faith. 

Favorable replies were returned by them all, and the 
constitution of the Russian Church, thus confirmed and 
sanctioned by the oecumenical fathers, still continues in 
full force, as established by Peter. 

A union between the Anglican and Oriental Churches, 
which had been already suggested to Peter, had mean- 
while been pressed in the East by certain members of 
the English clergy, but without any prospect of success. 
This visionary scheme received at the same time a defin- 
itive settlement. The Eastern fathers and the Eussian 
divines joined in emphatically repudiating the heretical 
and Calvinistic doctrines with which they declared the 
English Church to be tainted, and, mutually exhorting 
each other to be steadfast in the faith, they reasserted 
the truth of the Orthodox confession, as set forth by 
Peter Mogila and proclaimed by Dositheus, Patriarch of 
Jerusalem, at the Council of Bethlehem, in 1672. 

Other questions, which at different periods of the 
Church's history had been decided and redecided, now, 
in one way and again in another, were discussed, and to 
Peter's influence was due the more Catholic and Chris- 
tian spirit in which they were finally settled. 



FINAL CONSTITUTION OF CHURCH.— TOLERATION. 127 

The rcbaptism of converts from Romanism had been 
already abolished in Russia, and it was now declared to 
be equally unnecessary in the case of Protestant Chris- 
tian sects. Marriage between members of the Orthodox 
Church and those of a foreign creed were permitted, 
upon condition that no attempt should be made to sub- 
vert the belief of the Orthodox husband or wife, and that 
the children should be educated in the Orthodox faith. 

The changes and reforms which Peter imposed upon 
the nation, once definitively settled and accepted, his 
treatment of dissenting sects, whose hostility was no 
longer dangerous to his institutions, became milder. 
Peaceful subjects, who held aloof from political affairs, 
were assured of protection. In passing through the 
deserts along the river Vyg, he visited a flourishing col- 
ony of these schismatics, and encouraged them in their 
efforts to reclaim the wilderness. lie bade them pray 
for him. " God," said he, " has given power over the 
nation to the tsar, but Christ alone has power over the 
consciences of men." Yet, as a true believer, he consid- 
ered Dissent an error, the propagation of which he wished 
to prevent ; hence its adherents were doubly taxed, and 
compelled to adopt a peculiar dress ; attendance upon the 
church service on Sundays, and communion at Easter, 
were made obligatory upon all, and any attack upon the 
Orthodox faith met with severe punishment. He pursued 
a similar policy of toleration towards Western religions, 
and their establishments were numerous ; the Jesuits 
alone fell under his displeasure, from their inveterate 
habit of meddling in politics, and were banished from 
the empire in 1710. 

Peters intention, not only to prevent clashing of au- 
thority between Church and State, but also to make the 
former a dependency upon, and an auxiliary of, the latter, 



128 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

proved successful, and the result was, to his own mind, 
eminently satisfactory. On hearing read a comparison 
between himself and Louis XIV., greatly in his own 
favor, he remarked : " I do not think I merit the prefer- 
ence given to me, but I have been so happy as to be su- 
perior to the French monarch in one essential point ; I 
have forced my clergy to obedience and peace, and 
Louis allowed himself to be subjugated by his." Peter's 
sense of the great importance of the Church, as an essen- 
tial element of government, was evinced by his solicitude 
for its prosperity and dignity, not only within his do- 
minions, but wherever the Greek faith existed. His alms 
and donations to the churches of the East were large 
and frequent, and the influence of his government was 
constantly exercised for the protection of his co-religion- 
ists, wherever found. 

At the union of the Orthodox churches of Lithuania 
and Poland to the see of Moscow, and as one of the con- 
ditions of the treaty with John Sobiesky, in 1685, liberty 
of conscience and freedom of worship were guaranteed 
to the adherents of the Greek faith. Diplomatic stipu- 
lations, however, proved no bar to the spirit of intoler- 
ance, and the Orthodox population of those countries 
were subjected to fierce and constant persecution on the 
part of the Catholics and TJniates. "Within a few years 
every Orthodox bishop, except Silvester of Mogilev, was 
deposed and replaced by others appointed by Cyprian, 
the Uniate metropolitan of Polotsk, an apostate from 
Orthodoxy, and its bitter enemy. 

Peter, although engaged in constant and terrible wars, 
earnestly remonstrated and threatened, but received in 
reply only empty promises, never fulfilled. The high- 
handed measures of Cyprian were continued by his suc- 
cessor, Leo Zishka, with the approval of the national 



PERSECUTION OF THE ORTHODOX IN TOLAND. 129 

diet. The few monasteries and churches, which, in spite 
of oppression, had maintained a struggling existence, 
were suppressed and their property confiscated, while all 
who professed the Orthodox faith were declared inca- 
pable of holding public office. From 1T1S to 1720 fresh 
remonstrances of the tsar, then at the zenith of his pow- 
er, led to an apparent amelioration in the condition of 
the Orthodox sufferers. Strict orders for their protection 
were issued by Augustus of Poland, and the papal nuncio 
at Warsaw threatened with his apostolic curse all who 
should disturb the peace of the Orthodox Church, but the 
change was more apparent than real. The government 
in Poland was never sufficiently strong to repress the 
intemperate zeal of the clergy and the Jesuits, or to 
afford efficient protection to the Orthodox peasant from 
the rapacious exactions of his Catholic lord. Continued 
persecutions led to renewed appeals of the unhappy 
sufferers to the Polish king, and to the national diet. 
Eussia, under the successors of Peter the Great, con- 
stantly interfered in their behalf, but without effectual 
result. 

In 1762, during the reign of Elizabeth, George Ko- 
minski, the Orthodox bishop of White Eussia, laid before 
King Stanislas, and the diet, a statement of the sad con- 
dition to which the adherents of the Greek faith had 
been reduced, with an earnest appeal for the redress of 
their wrongs. Two hundred of their churches had been 
forcibly seized and given over to the Uniates ; they were 
prevented from repairing their ancient edifices, falling 
into ruins, and forbidden to erect new ones ; their priests 
were hindered in their ministrations, imprisoned, tor- 
tured, and put to death without any form of trial ; con- 
gregations Avere dispersed by force ; Orthodox believers 
were deprived of all civil rights ; freedom of worship 
9 



130 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

and liberty of conscience, so often promised, had become 
words without meaning. 

The patience of Russia was exhausted, and when the 
Orthodox Poles appealed to Catherine II., as head or de- 
fender of their Church, their demands for religious tol- 
eration, and for the restoration of their political rights 
were supported by Eussian armies assembled on the 
frontier. Stanislas was ready with promises, but his 
authority was impotent before the fanatical intolerance 
of the Catholic diet, which, in 1766, refused to accede to 
any change, or to sanction any reform. Catherine's am- 
bassador, Eepnine, proved equal to the emergency, and, 
calling Eussian troops into Poland, he seized the Catho- 
lic prelates Soltyk, Bishop of Cracow, and Zalusski, 
Bishop of Kiev, who were most bitter in their opposi- 
tion, and sent them prisoners to Eussia. This energetic, 
but high-handed measure, although a violation of the 
law of nations, received general approval throughout 
Europe, as having been taken in defence of liberty of 
conscience. It produced the desired effect; the diet 
yielded, recognized the principle of religious toleration 
and the equal rights of Orthodox with Catholic subjects ; 
but these concessions, exacted by force, and grudgingly 
assented to, only embittered the strife. This great re- 
ligious controversy was eventually one of the chief 
causes of the first partition of Poland, and of its final 
division in 1795, when, by the absorption of Polish terri- 
tory, the sway of Eussia again reached the extreme limits 
of the ancient dominions of Euric. 

In strong contrast with the fierce intolerance of the 
Polish government, the rule of Catherine II., in matters 
of conscience, was mild and liberal. Catholics were pro- 
tected, and assured of immunity from persecution ; even 
Jesuits, then under the ban of Europe and of the pope, 






ABSORPTION OF THE UNIA BY ORTHODOXY. 131 

were allowed the right of residence in White Russia. 
Her wise and judicious policy was followed, in the Polish 
provinces, by a strong reaction in favor of the Orthodox 
faith, and, before the end of her reign, nearly two millions 
of the inhabitants returned to their former belief. The 
reactionary religious movement led, as a natural conse- 
quence, to the healing of the schism in the Church, and 
to the reunion of the Unia with Orthodoxy. This re- 
sult became the ardent desire of the Uniate clergy. It 
was earnestly advocated by the metropolitan lleraclius 
Lisovsky, early in the nineteenth century, and met with 
warm encouragement from the Emperor Nicholas, upon 
his accession to the thrones of Russia and Poland. In 
1828, he established in Poland a spiritual college for the 
Uniates, under the direction of the metropolitan Josa- 
phat Bulgak, and raised the Uniate Church to a footing 
of perfect equality with the Roman Catholic, in all its 
rights and privileges. The Uniate services were purified 
of all changes and alterations introduced under the rule 
of former kings, and were restored according to the an- 
cient rites and ceremonies of the Greek Church. In 
1839, the Uniate bishops and clergy, assembled in council 
at Polotsk, under Joseph Siemaszko, then metropolitan, 
signed an act declaring it to be their wish, and that of 
their entire community, to be received back into full and 
complete communion with the "Holy Orthodox Catho- 
lic Eastern Church," and into inseparable union with the 
" Church of all the Russias." Their petition was pre- 
sented to the Emperor Nicholas, and, by him, laid before 
the Most Holy Synod, accompanied by declarations to 
the same effect from the entire body of the Uniate cler- 
gy. The petition was at once granted, and the Holy 
Synod decreed, in March, 1839, with the ratification of 
the emperor, " To receive the bishops, clergy, and spir- 



132 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

itual flocks of the hitherto-called Greek Uniate Church 
into full and complete communion with the Holy Ortho- 
dox Catholic Church, and so as to be integrally and in- 
separably incorporated with the Church of all the Rus- 
sias." 1 By this measure about two millions of Uniates 
were joined to the National Church. The only act of 
profession required was the acknowledgment " that Our 
Lord Jesus Christ is the One True Head of the One 
True Church," and the Holy Synod, with wise and Chris- 
tian forbearance, recommended " that an apostolic indul- 
gence should be exhibited to local peculiarities not affect- 
ing the Sacraments or Faith." 2 

The position and constitution of the Church in Russia 
remained without material change under the immediate 
successors of Peter the Great. With the accession of 
Elizabeth, in 1741, the old Russian party obtained the 
ascendency, and their animosity against the German and 
foreign element, which had been so long predominant, 
was evinced by increase of Orthodox zeal, directed against 
heretics and schismatics. They were again subjected to 
violent persecution; their fanaticism had suffered no 
diminution, and, rather than yield, they sought voluntary 
immolation by hundreds in expectation of eternal happi- 
ness. Elizabeth was under the influence of priests, and 
acquiesced in their bitter opposition to native Dissent, 
and to the presence in Russia of strange religions. 

The Synod ordered the suppression of Armenian and 
Protestant churches ; Tatar mosques were closed, and 
Jews were expelled from the empire as enemies of 
" Christ our Lord." This revival of clerical intolerance 
was accompanied by efforts to improve the internal con- 
dition of the Church. Theological studies in Russian 

1 Mouravief , p. 445. 2 Neale, p. 57. 



ELIZABETH.— PETER £IL— CATHERINE IL 133 

schools were as puerile as at the universities of the Middle 
Ages, where it was discussed whether Jesus, at his ascen- 
sion, had his clothes on or not; if not, did he appear 
naked to his apostles? if lie had, what became of them? 
At the Academy of Moscow, divines seriously debated 
whether angels reason by analysis or by synthesis, and 
what may be the nature of the light of glory in the 
future life. The ignorance of the priests was severely 
reprobated ; learned and intelligent professors were ap- 
pointed in the ecclesiastical colleges, and attendance was 
strictly enforced. 

The morals of the clergy were corrected by the rough 
discipline of the secular arm ; drunkenness and disorder 
were punished by the lash ; scandalous fairs, where dis- 
solute priests and mendicant friars let out their services 
to the highest bidder, were suppressed, and the priests, 
who thus degraded their holy office, were sent to the 
whipping-post. The filthy condition of the sacred im- 
ages, and of the churches, was stigmatized as a shame, 
and inspectors were appointed to keep them clean, to 
maintain decency of appearance among the officiating 
clergy, and to preserve order and decorum during the 
services. The necessity of issuing and enforcing regula- 
tions against abuses and evils of so gross a nature is suffi- 
cient comment upon the deplorable state of things exist- 
ing in the lower ranks of the clergy, and among the de- 
vout, though superstitious, worshippers. 

The short reign of Peter III., in 17G2, inaugurated an 
era of toleration and religious freedom, as he felt no es- 
pecial sympathy for the national faith, which he had 
embraced, under compulsion, at his accession to the 
throne. He checked the persecution of Dissenters, and, 
by promises of protection, and offers of grants of land in 
Siberia, he encouraged their return from exile. " Mahom- 



134 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

etans," he proclaimed by ukase, " and even idolaters, are 
tolerated in the empire ; now the Easkolniks (Dissenters) 
are Christians." 

The great Catherine continued, in matters of con- 
science, the liberal policy of her husband Peter III., and 
exercised severity only against those who disturbed pub- 
lic order, and, like Pougatchev, revolted against her au- 
thority as sovereign. Her measures of repression were 
not dictated by motives of religious intolerance, and she 
assured all Dissenters, who were willing to be law-abiding 
and faithful subjects, of immunity from persecution and 
of her protection, in earnest of which she relieved them 
of the double tax imposed by Peter the Great. 

She permitted the establishment of foreign religions, 
and, in order to people the fertile, but uninhabited, re- 
gions of the Volga and the Ukraine, she encouraged im- 
migration, and offered in her realm an asylum to all 
persecuted religious sects, with unrestrained liberty of 
conscience. Many thousands answered her appeal, and 
nearly two hundred towns sprang into existence as a 
consequence of this wise and enlightened policy. 

Animated by views similar to those of her great pre- 
decessor, Peter, and determined to make the Church 
subservient to the State, she resumed, and carried into 
effect, the secularization of ecclesiastical property. An 
" Economical Commission " was charged with its admin- 
istration ; the monasteries, converted from land-owning 
proprietors to crown pensioners, received allowances, 
each in proportion to its wants, and the surplus revenues 
were applied to schools, invalid homes, and hospitals. 
In her correspondence with Yoltaire she dwells with 
complacency upon this important measure, and upon the 
liberal spirit in which it was carried into effect. " I 
think," she writes, " you would be pleased with this as- 



EFFECT OF CHANGES IN CHUBCH GOVERNMENT. 135 

sembly, where an Orthodox believer sits between a here- 
tic and a Mussulman, the three listening to an idolater, 
and all four consulting together how to render their con- 
elusions satisfactory to all." 

Beyond her own dominions Catherine was the recog- 
nized, and oft-appealed to, protector of the Orthodox 
Church. She assumed the prerogative of "Defender of 
the Faith," not only in the countries along her borders, 
but also in the far East, where a quasi right of protec- 
torate over the Christian subjects of the sultan was con- 
ceded by the treaty of Koutchouk-Kai'rnadji in 1774. 
This right, much cherished by Eussian sovereigns, was 
frequently asserted and maintained by arms, until wrest- 
ed from Nicholas by the disastrous war of the Crimea, in 
1852. 

The radical changes in the ecclesiastical organization 
made by Peter the Great, and maintained intact by his 
successors, aided by the extraordinary growth of the 
power of Russia and of its monarchs, the absolutely au- 
tocratic nature of its government, and the singularly sub- 
missive disposition of the Eussian people, produced in 
time their anticipated result. The Church lost its indi- 
viduality and independence, as a necessary consequence 
of the impersonal character of the Holy Synod, its gov- 
erning body and head. Composed of many men hold- 
ing, with few exceptions, their positions by the will and 
at the pleasure of the sovereign, severally liable to the 
influences of different, and possibly conflicting, motives, 
with a representative of the emperor, source of all pow- 
er, in their midst, the Synod no longer possessed the sin- 
gleness of purpose and the unity of action inherent to the 
authority of one supreme pontiff. By the suppression of 
the patriarchate all danger of rivalry, or conflict, between 
Church and State was averted, but with it disappeared, as 



136 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT, 

well, the independence of the former, and much of its 
energy and vitality. It became practically, what it now 
remains, the vassal of the crown, an important, even the 
most important, of the departments of government, but 
still, only one of the many powers which make up the 
State, whereof the tsar is absolute head. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Influence of the Religious Element ; its Development. — National 
Character of the Church ; its Isolation. — Differences from Catholic 
and Protestant Churches. — Popes. — Development of Church and 
State in Russia.— Church Government. 

The influence of the religious element in the history 
of Russia, and of its people, can hardly be exaggerated. 
In no country in Europe has it been greater, and yet, as 
one of those singular contrasts which the study of Rus- 
sian civilization presents, while over the mass of the na- 
tion its power is and has been constant, nearly absolute, 
the upper classes have to a great degree become emanci- 
pated from its control, and indifferent to it. Since the 
days of Peter the Great the spirit of doubt and scepti- 
cism, characteristic of the eighteenth century, has per- 
vaded the nobility and governing classes ; among them 
Atheism is as general a doctrine as Christianity, and in- 
fidelity has supplanted faith ; but the great body of the 
people have never risen above that degree of civilization 
in which all new ideas generally, and naturally, are im- 
bued with a tincture of religion or superstition. Russian 
peasants are very devout, especially those who belong 
to the dissenting sects ; among others, of the Orthodox 
creed, religion is rather a mechanical ritualism, but it 
holds them under bonds as severe as those of the most 
intense fanaticism. Evidence of the wonderful vitality 
of the religious principle among them is seen in its fe- 
cundity ; it has given rise to innumerable sects, and oth- 
ers are constantly appearing ; but this principle, so deep- 



138 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ly rooted in the heart of the Russian peasant, is not 
entirely, and necessarily, always Christian in its nature. 
The conversion of the Russian people in the Middle Ages 
was sudden, and easily accomplished at the command of 
its princes, and was, in the same degree, superficial ; the 
spirit of Christianity never permeated the masses so 
thoroughly, nor triumphed so completely over the an- 
cient religions as elsewhere in the West. Many pagan 
ceremonies were partially engrafted on the services of 
the Church, while much of the old pagan superstition re- 
mained in the hearts of the people, covered up and con- 
cealed by a Christian exterior, but still exercising, even 
to the present clay, unconscious influence over their re- 
ligious conceptions. 

The ceremonies of the Church recall to them the mag- 
ical incantations of their heathen ancestors. The peas- 
ant imagines that the priest possesses the secret of pro- 
pitiating the heavenly powers by the rites of the altar ; 
that St. Ylas, the cattle-preserver, St. Elia, the rain-giver, 
St. George, the patron of wolves, all yield to priestly in- 
tercession. By it he can secure good harvests and increase 
of his flocks. 

Attributes of pagan deities have been transferred to 
popular saints of the Russian calendar, and the whole 
universe teems with imaginary beings of superhuman 
nature, who, to the peasant, have a real existence ; he 
believes that when Satan fell from heaven his hosts 
found refuge, some under the earth, as gnomes, others 
in the elements of earth, air, and water, or about the 
domestic hearth, as sprites ; when hunting, he offers to 
the Lyeshi, or wood-demons, the first game he hills ; if 
he be sick, he leaves in the forest a bit of bread or salt, 
with an invocation to the sylvan deity. The leaven of 
this pagan mythology still ferments in the peasant mind. 



KELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 139 

The old belief could not be readily set aside, and was 
engrafted on the new ; hence the epithet " two-faithed," 
often applied to the Eussian people by their old writ- 
ers. 

The three spiritual conditions — paganism, Christianity, 
and scepticism — which, in other countries, generally cor- 
respond to consecutive phases of their development, are, 
in Russia, still recognizable in singular admixture. Not- 
withstanding this apparent confusion of ideas upon re- 
ligion, which seems to pervade whole classes of society, 
the Church, as such, has always carefully preserved the 
ancient purity of its faith, without change or corruption, 
as it came originally from the shores of the Bosphorus. 

Christianity in Eussia is not merely a creed or a relig- 
ion ; it is, above all, a national institution ; the first, the 
most venerable, and the most popular. Scepticism, in 
modern days, may be rampant, self -asserting, and wide- 
spread, but the Church is never assailed ; its children 
may have lost faith in its teachings, it still retains its 
hold upon their affection and their sympathies. 

As in England, the Church in Eussia is a national 
Church ; it is also a member of a great Christian com- 
munion, which rises above kingdoms and nationalities, 
and claims universal homage as the Holy, Catholic, Apos- 
tolic, Orthodox Church. When it separated from Eome 
its adherents numbered barely twenty millions; now 
they exceed eighty millions; of these sixty are under 
Russian rule, and, of the remainder, about half are of the 
Slavonic race, subjects of Turkey or Austria. Although 
designated as the Greek Church, it embraces many branch- 
es of the human family, and, of these, the Slavonic is the 
one predominant ; it rules over many nations, of which 
the most civilized, and by far the most powerful, is Eus- 
sia. As Catholicism may be termed the "Latin form of 



140 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Christianity, and Protestantism the Germanic, so Ortho- 
doxy is the Slavonic. 

There is a singular coincidence in the slight influence 
exercised by the Orthodox Church and the Slav race 
upon European civilization. Had they never existed 
their absence would have been hardly perceptible, where- 
as modern culture and development would be scarcely 
conceivable without Catholicism and Protestantism, or 
without the Latin and Germanic races. 

The reasons for this striking inferiority, often and 
unjustly attributed solely to the Eastern Church, are 
manifold. Among them are, chiefly, the troubled, anx- 
ious political destinies of the nations acknowledging its 
sway : their isolated geographical situation, far from 
the centres of intellectual life ; their position as forlorn 
hopes of European civilization and Christianity against 
barbaric and infidel invasion from Asia, and their relig- 
ious, as well as their geographical separation from the 
rest of the civilized world, which was a consequence of the 
bitter hostility of Pome. Other reasons, of a secondary 
nature, may be traced to the different conceptions, in the 
East and in the "West, of the mission and duty of the 
Church. The progressive element, and the gradual de- 
velopment of Christian truth, recognized by one com- 
munion, were ignored by the other. Pome admitted the 
principle of continual growth in religious knowledge, of 
constantly clearer manifestations of the faith, of further 
revelations of the sacred mysteries to be attained by study 
of the "Word. To the Eastern theologian this idea was 
impious and damnable ; for him the hour of discussion 
was closed by the decisions of the oecumenical councils 
anterior to the rupture between the Churches. The whole 
truth had been proclaimed, to which nothing could be 
added and nothing taken away. The limitations of the 



GREEK AND LATIN CHURCHES.— DIFFERENCES. 141 

faith, thus forever established, without possibility of 
change, the Greek believer could, it is true, within those 
limits, exercise perfect freedom of personal interpreta- 
tion, without fear of encountering more precise, authori- 
tative definitions in the future, and the field open for 
discussion appeared the more vast, as the space circum- 
scribed by unalterable dogmas was the more restricted. 
The result is apparent in the numerous sects and schisms 
within the fold of the Eastern, and, at a later day, of the 
Russian, Church, but the very immutability of the dogma 
tended to limit investigation to matters of minor impor- 
tance, just at the period when human thought and study 
were concentrated chiefly on religious topics. At Rome, 
on the contrary, while individual opinion was always 
subject to decisions of the Church made obligatory on 
its adherents, the possibility of influencing those decis- 
ions was a constant stimulus to the development of intel- 
lectual activity upon questions of highest moment, and 
gradually extended its sphere of action to all branches of 
philosophy and modern science. 

"With this notable difference in the conception of the 
true development of Christian dogma, there is another, 
still more important, in the views held upon ecclesiastical 
authority. On this point the Greeks and the Latins are 
completely antagonistic. Bishops and priests are recog- 
nized among them both, but the Greeks do not accept 
any centralization of the power of the Church ; they do 
not acknowledge any living chief before whom all must 
bow. Jesus Christ is, for them, the only Head of the 
Church, and He has no vicar on earth. The infallibility 
of the pope, and his supreme control, was the rock upon 
which the Churches split. The Greeks refuse allegiance 
to any other general authority than that of the whole 
Church in council assembled, and deny the existence of 



142 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

any permanent, living, personal head ; no individual pon- 
tiff can speak in the name of the Church, or wield its 
power; that supreme prerogative belongs only to an (Ecu- 
menical Council. The Synod of Kussia, the Patriarch of 
Constantinople, may censure or direct; their decisions 
are not infallible, nor are they binding beyond the lim- 
its of their own jurisdiction ; even within them, personal 
opinions, individual consciences, are free, save in so far 
as the civil authority may lend its power to enforce the 
Church's decree. Kecognizing no visible head, there has 
been no need of any local centre, of any Holy City, or 
of any spiritual monarch, vested, for his safeguard, with 
temporal power, and raised, as representative of divine 
right, by common consent of the faithful, above poten- 
tates and peoples. 

As a consequence, nations following the Eastern creed 
have been spared the fierce and bloody struggles between 
Church and State which have devastated the West, but, 
as a further consequence, it has often happened that the 
State has encroached upon the Church, and made it sub- 
servient to its policy. 

Decentralization has been characteristic of the Ortho- 
dox Church ; it possesses unity of faith and of dogma 
without unity of government ; it is modelled on the prin- 
ciple of nationalities, and is constituted of many national 
and independent establishments, auto-cephalous, each one 
having its own administration and language, and its pe- 
culiar rites, united only by the spiritual bond of a com- 
mon belief ; each one limited by the frontiers of its own 
country, and the extent of its jurisdiction measured by 
the territory of the State on which it depends. It is oth- 
erwise in the Catholic Church, where the constant ten- 
dency is to one centre, effacing more and more geograph- 
ical separation and political boundaries, to claim univer- 
sal dominion. 



EFFECT UPON THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 143 

The inevitable result of this national character of Or- 
thodox Churches has been increase of the influence of the 
civil power over the ecclesiastic, and, in proportion as the 
government has been the stronger, this result has been 
the more perceptible ; it has been especially so in Russia, 
under absolute and autocratic rule. Throughout the 
history of this empire, harmony and concord have ever 
marked the relations of the two powers ; religious zeal 
has stimulated patriotic devotion ; the Church has ear- 
nestly co-operated in the creation and establishment of 
the State, and participated in its triumph over domestic, 
as well as over foreign foes ; but it has fallen under the 
control of the State ; the priest has become a functionary, 
and the Church, a department of the government. Intel- 
lectual stagnation followed the loss of its independence, 
and helped to aggravate the evil, peculiar to Russia, of 
isolation from the rest of the civilized world. The cler- 
gy submissively acquiesced in barring the influx of for- 
eign ideas, and fostered the growth of national preju- 
dices, as well as of patriotic sentiment. This isolation 
was also, in some measure, due to the national character 
which distinguished the Russian, as it did all Orthodox, 
Churches. Having no common religious centre, there 
was seldom need, or desire, for intercommunication ; the 
various national establishments were interested, each 
only in its own domestic affairs, and their intercourse, 
one with another, was infrequent and exceptional. The 
use of the Slavonic tongue was an important element in 
the early success of the Church, and contributed largely 
to the rapid dissemination of its doctrines among the 
people, but it followed that Latin, the common medium 
of communication between the learned of all countries, 
was never an essential feature of clerical education, and, 
consequently, not only was the intellectual isolation of 



14± THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Bussia greatly increased, but the clergy, shut out from 
the study of classic literature, were, as a body, afflicted 
with gross ignorance, degenerating into superstition, and 
the standard of morals among them was lowered to the 
level of their intellectual condition. 

As regards rites and ceremonies the Russian differs 
widely from the Catholic and the Protestant Churches. 
It is essentially ritualistic, and rigidly adheres to the 
practices of the fourth and fifth centuries. It is often 
reproached with stifling the essence of religious belief 
under outward forms. This accusation is, however, true 
only in part, and the fact, such as it exists, is attributable 
more to the character and disposition of the Slavonic and 
Eastern races, than to any fault of the Church ; on the 
contrary, it has, from the earliest ages, endeavored to 
guard against superstition and the surreptitiously de- 
grading influences of the senses. It has shown constant 
hostility to the most corrupting of all external obser- 
vances, that of image worship ; statues have never been 
admitted to its temples, and all pictorial illustrations have 
been restricted to unchanging traditional types, covered 
with metal, save the face and hands, ancient, expression- 
less, and austere ; the bishop, at his consecration, prom- 
ises " to provide that honor shall be paid to God only, 
not to the holy pictures, and that no false miracle shall 
be ascribed to them." The Virgin Mary, the apostles, 
and the saints receive, not adoration as gods, but a sec- 
ondary devotion, as due to those cleansed from original 
sin, and admitted to behold the Deity. 1 

Musical instruments have always been prohibited, and 
the human voice only has been heard in its chants, as in 
its prayers. Its efforts in this direction have been in 

1 Hare, "Studies in Russia," p. 57. ■ 



DIFFERENCES IN RITES AND CEREMONIES. 145 

vain, and even worse, as they have tended to deprive 
Russian civilization of the humanizing influences of the 
arts ; but the spirit of formalism, of feticism, with which 
the Church has been so often, so bitterly, and so unjustly 
reproached, arises rather from the realistic, material char- 
acter of the races subject to its sway, from their ignorance 
and proneness to superstition, and from their low intel- 
lectual development. For the Russian peasant, whose 
mind is still imbued with vague traditional reminiscences 
of his ancestral pagan worship, form and ceremony alone 
constitute religion ; and his attachment to outward ob- 
servances, his fidelity to rites consecrated by ancient 
usage, have given rise to obstinate schisms and dissen- 
sions, which still disturb the Church. . 

In the process of time, and notwithstanding their com- 
mon origin, material differences have arisen in the form 
of the rites and ceremonies practised by the Eastern and 
Western Churches ; these differences have been accom- 
panied by a gradual, and finally a radical, divergence of 
opinion as to the essential meaning and importance of the 
ceremonial observances. The two Churches have the same 
sacraments, inherited from the same source, but they are 
conceived in a widely different spirit, and have a very dif- 
ferent application and influence in the one, and in the other. 

Among the Orthodox, baptism is administered by im- 
mersion only, and the validity of the Western ceremony, 
of merely sprinkling, is, by many of them, gravely ques- 
tioned; it was for a long time absolutely denied, and 
converts to their faith were rebaptized, as a necessary 
introduction to the true Christian communion. In the 
Greek Church of Constantinople this custom is still 
maintained, and constitutes the only essential point of 
difference from the Russian Church, where, in this re- 
spect, more liberal ideas now prevail. 
10 



146 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

The Lord's Supper is administered by the Greek 
Church as it is among Protestants; the communicant 
partakes, with the clergy, of the consecrated bread and 
wine, and attaches vast importance to this privilege, as 
establishing his equality with the priesthood in the eye 
of God. Contrary to the custom of the Latin Church, 
it uses leavened, instead of unleavened, bread, as the true 
symbol of the Pascal feast ; while it recognizes, like the 
Latin, the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, 
it does not pretend so precisely to designate the moment 
and manner of the transubstantiation, and claims, in con- 
sequence, a more spiritual interpretation of the mystery. 
A yearly confession and attendance at the holy table is 
made compulsory by law, and the great mass of the 
Russian people, although scrupulous to the extreme in 
the discharge of their religious duties, have come to con- 
sider an annual celebration of the festival as sufficient ; 
the more piously inclined may, in the excess of their de- 
votion, repeat it three or four times ; but, even among 
the most devout, a monthly communion is more unusual 
than is its weekly observance among Catholics. So rare 
a participation in this most sacred of the sacraments, and 
the season of prayer and fasting enjoined as preparation 
for it, should, it would seem, invest it with peculiar sol- 
emnity ; but the general habit of all flocking to the altar 
at the same period, together with its perfunctory nature, 
diminishes its effect upon the individual imagination, and 
has reduced it to the level of mere ceremonial routine. 
Being obligatory, and a pecuniary charge as well, the 
peasant, notwithstanding his devout and superstitious 
character, is inclined to shirk communion as often as he 
dares. Official reports show that frequently, in parishes 
of three or four thousand inhabitants, not more than two 
or three hundred partake of it. There is, 



DIFFERENCES IN RITES.-CONFESSION. 147 

the Russian Church no first communion, properly so 
called ; infants are admitted to the holy table, in ac- 
cordance with the practice of the primitive Church. 
There is no long preliminary preparation for this in- 
itiation to the body of the elect, filling the youthful 
mind with religious awe and reverence, and which, 
among Catholics, and many Protestant sects, marks 
the event as one ever to be remembered. Religion 
thus becomes a less important element of early educa- 
tion, and loses much of its practical influence on after- 
life. 

The sacrament of the holy chrism replaces confirma- 
tion, but it does not correspond to the similar ceremony 
of the Catholic Church ; always following the custom of 
the early Christians, it is, by Russians, conferred immedi- 
ately after baptism, and may be administered by a priest, 
not necessarily by the bishop. 

Auricular confession exists, and in Russia, as among 
Catholics, the inviolability of its secret is protected by 
law, save in cases of political conspiracies. It is, how- 
ever, held in very different estimation, and practised in a 
different manner; it is shorter and more general, less 
explicit, less exacting, and less frequent ; it is restricted 
to sins of a grave and serious nature, without entering 
into matters of thought or conscience, or the minute 
specific detail of daily life ; it is free from the inquisito- 
rial, suggestive, often repugnant, investigation into per- 
sonal and family affairs by the priest, and is, to a far 
less degree, an instrument of power and authority for 
the clergy. A few general questions, and the stereotype 
reply, " I am a sinner," comprise all that is usually nec- 
essary for absolution ; there is no confessional or pri- 
vacy' ; the priest and the penitent stand face to face, gen- 
erally, but not always, separated from the congregation 



148 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

by a screen. During Lent the Church is crowded by the 
faithful, who, ranged in long processions, press one upon 
another, with tapers in their hands, frequently bowing 
the head, and, in accordance with Eussian custom, mak- 
ing repeated signs of the cross ; each one, advancing in 
turn, answers the priest's questions with the usual for- 
mula, receives absolution, and, passing on, lights his ta- 
per, and, with renewed genuflexions and crossings, places 
it before the holy images ; a few days afterwards he re- 
turns for communion. The confessional rite thus reduced 
to the utmost simplicity may, for the piously inclined, 
be full of solemn meaning ; but for the multitude it is 
only a duty ordained by law, and to be performed at 
stated intervals. That the holiest and most spiritual of 
the sacraments should, in the estimation of a people nat- 
urally of so devout a temperament, have degenerated 
into mere formal and external observances, and have lost 
their vivifying influence, is capable of various explana- 
tions. Their obligatory nature has much to do with it. 
The State has here lent its aid to enforce the commands 
of the Church ; it is an article of the code that every 
Eussian subject shall make confession, and partake of 
communion, at least once in every year ; and the civil and 
military authorities are, with the clergy, charged with 
the execution of the law. These enactments have fallen 
into partial disuse; the progress of civilization, and of 
liberal ideas, render their universal application impracti- 
cable; still they exist for the intimidation of some, a 
stimulus to the indiscreet zeal of others. Certificates of 
confession are given with absolution ; lists of the com- 
municants of each parish are sent annually to the bishop, 
and, by him, those of the diocese are sent to the Synod, 
to be embodied in the tabular statistics submitted to 
the emperor. Compulsion is seldom employed, but the 



EFFECTS.-EXACTIONS OF THE CLERGY.— POPES. 149 

" moujik " ! wishes to avoid the vexation of official super- 
vision ; petty employees seek to curry favor with their 
superiors, and the law affords an opportunity for them 
to display their alacrity. Religious duties, thus de- 
graded to the level of police regulations, are performed 
in the same spirit as that in which the latter are obeyed. 

Another explanation is found in the poverty of the 
clergy, and the inadequate provision by the State for 
their maintenance. They depend, for their support, upon 
the contributions they can levy upon their parishioners, 
and expect payment for the duties they discharge. Every 
sacrament — confession and communion, as well as bap- 
tism, marriage, and burying — is a matter of bargain ; no 
recognized tariff exists, but a gift is exacted, of which 
only the amount is voluntary. The sinner compounds 
with the Church, and his penance is in inverse propor- 
tion to his liberality. The authority and influence of 
the priesthood suffer ; the sacred office, and he who holds 
it, are degraded by this chaffering over a price for the 
highest privileges of the Christian faith. 

The position of a Russian pope towards his flock dif- 
fers greatly from that of the Catholic priest. Not celi- 
bacy, but marriage, is obligatory for him ; the common 
existence of family ties draws him and his parishioners 
more nearly together, and makes their interests analo- 
gous. They create, as with the Protestant clergy, a 
stronger feeling of mutual sympathy, a greater commu- 
nity of ideas and sentiments; while they also tend to 
diminish pastoral authority, and to check the reverential 
respect involuntarily shown to those who, from noble 
and lofty motives, make the sacrifice of the purest joys 

1 Movjik is the diminutive of the Russian word "movje," man, the 
Latin vir, and designates the peasant or serf. 



150 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

granted to mankind. Ordination in the Russian Church, 
is not necessarily for life ; a priest may be relieved of 
his vows by the Holy Synod. If convicted of crime, he 
may, like any functionary, be degraded from his office ; 
the death of his wife (a second marriage is not permit- 
ted) deprives him of his sacred character, and he can no 
longer officiate. In a word, the Russian pope is rather a 
minister at, and a servant of the altar, than the represen- 
tative of the Deity. 

The clergy of the Orthodox, like that of the Catholic, 
Church is divided into the regular and secular bodies ; 
but here again wide differences prevail. In Russia there 
are monks and nuns under vows of celibacy, but there 
are no religious orders ; there are numerous monasteries 
and convents, but they are isolated establishments, inde- 
pendent of one another. Great federated communities, 
united under central governments, constituting formida- 
ble spiritual powers within the State and the Church, do 
not exist. 

As regards marriage, the Orthodox agree in many re- 
spects with the Catholic ; they hold it to be a sacrament 
of the Church. There is, in Russia, no civil ceremony. 
They do not look with favor upon remarrying, and, 
while they tolerate a second and a third marriage, under 
penances, the Church canons prohibit a fourth. They 
declare the tie to be indissoluble, but the law considers 
physical defect, absence for five years, and adultery suf- 
ficient causes for separation ; in the latter case, the inno- 
cent spouse may marry again, but the guilty one cannot. 

From this comparison it is evident that, contrary to 
what is generally supposed, the differences between the 
Russian and other Churches, not of the Orthodox creed, 
are in reality fundamental, and not merely superficial ; 
they do not consist simply in slight variations and di- 



TENDENCIES OF THE DIFFERENT CHURCHES. 151 

vergences in the performance of similar rites and cere- 
monies, while the creed and the traditions, the hierarchy 
and the sacraments, remain the same; they go deeper; 
they affect the conception of Christian truth, and the 
spirit of Christian worship, and are manifest in the dif- 
ferent influences exerted by the different Churches upon 
the government of nations, and upon the development of 
civilization. 

The Catholic, by its concentration, by its regular hier- 
archy under a supreme head, by the spirit of obedience 
and submission which it inculcates, by the power and 
authority conferred upon its chief, and by its aim at uni- 
versal dominion, tends to centralization, and favors the 
principle of absolute monarchy. 

The Protestant, by its latitude in matters of faith, by 
its spirit of inquiry and freedom of interpretation, by the 
liberty of thought which it encourages, by its division into 
various sects and their independence of each other, tends 
to decentralization, and sympathizes with the principle 
of a representative, or republican form of government. 

The Orthodox, fixed and immutable in its traditions 
and belief, although without any supreme authority 
over it, is conservative in its tendency ; allowing wide 
scope, within defined limits, to individual opinion, it per- 
mits a certain freedom of thought ; having no political 
proclivities, it neither advocates, nor favors, any special 
form of government, but accords with existing institu- 
tions, if they be not hostile to Christian truth. While 
not actually progressive, it is no enemy to progress, and 
allows the free development of the nations over which 
it holds sway, according to the national genius of each, 
and according to the influences which may surround it ; 
it is equally at home in democratic Greece, and in auto- 
cratic Russia. 



152 THE RUSSIAN CHUECH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Orthodoxy appears to occupy an intermediate place 
between Catholicism and Protestantism, but it would be 
a grave error to suppose that it accepts this position in 
any timid or halting spirit, or as being in any wise one 
of transition, as if emanating from the former and gradu- 
ally tending to the latter. On the contrary, it unhesi- 
tatingly asserts its claim to be the sole legitimate heir of 
the primitive Church, unchangeable and ever unchang- 
ing, immutable from the beginning, founded upon apos- 
tolic truth as upon a rock. Far from seeking alliance 
with either, it looks down upon them both, with pitying 
disdain, as wandering and estranged from Christ. 

Christianity in Russia has, from its introduction, been 
subject to the principle of development peculiar and in- 
herent to Orthodoxy. The Church has adapted itself to, 
and modelled itself upon, the political constitution of the 
nation ; it has extended its jurisdiction as the geograph- 
ical boundaries of the empire have been enlarged. 

The degree of independence which it has enjoyed in 
its connection with the State, and the freedom it has 
allowed to those within its bosom, have been in harmony 
with the character of the national institutions ; and the 
method of its administration has corresponded to that of 
the civil government. The autocratic principle, imposed 
upon the people by its rulers, did not have its rise in any 
timid subserviency on the part of the Church ; it existed 
already in the nature of the governing power ; it was 
recognized by the Church, as well as by the nation, and, 
under its influence, the one assumed its natural position 
of relative dependency, and the other was reduced to 
absolute subjection. In this result of dependency on the 
State the Church has never felt, nor acknowledged, any 
degradation of its sacred character ; in its own estima- 
tion, and as its disciples declare, it has been guided by 






HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH. 153 

its universal practice, and by its early traditions, as ex- 
emplified in the relations which existed between the 
primitive Church and the first Byzantine emperors. 

For a proper appreciation of this view of its position 
towards the State, it is necessary to follow the gradual 
development of the one alongside of the other, through 
the tolerably distinct phases, or periods, of Russian eccle- 
siastical history. These are, broadly: first, the period 
of the complete dependence of the Church upon the See 
of Constantinople ; second, the transition period, during 
which it gradually acquired autonomy, and approached 
the time of its emancipation from foreign control ; then, 
the period of the patriarchate, when its ecclesiastical in- 
dependence had been definitively established, and it rose 
to its highest power; and finally, that of the Holy 
Synod, when it became subordinate to the State, and 
which still continues. 

During the first period, the metropolitans of Russia 
had their seat primarily at Kiev, the capital of the great 
princes ; they were almost invariably appointed, and sent 
thither, by the Patriarch of Constantinople ; they were 
generally Greeks, ignorant of the language and customs 
of the people over whom they ruled ; the Church was sim- 
ply a diocese, a province of the Byzantine patriarchate. 

The invasion of the Tatars, and the consequent re- 
moval of the seat of government from the banks of the 
Dnieper far to the interior of the country, separated the 
two Churches, and isolated them one from another ; as 
the metropolitan accompanied the prince, the religious 
centre was displaced to follow the political. Communi- 
cation became difficult, often impracticable, through im- 
mense wastes peopled with savage and warring tribes ; 
a sense of independence on the part of the Eussian 
Church was the natural result of rare intercourse, and 



154 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

this feeling was increased by the frequent necessity 
which arose of filling the ecclesiastical throne, when 
reference to, or waiting upon, Constantinople was an im- 
possibility. It became a recognized principle that the 
primate should be of Russian blood, chosen by his clergy 
or named by the prince, and, although consecration by 
the Byzantine patriarch was still held to be essential, 
the idea of a national establishment was germinating. 
True to its origin and traditions, the Church was ever 
respectful to authority, and loyal to the legitimate sov- 
ereign. During long civil wars and foreign subjugation 
its influence expanded, and was less overshadowed by 
that of the State ; it was favored and protected by Ta- 
tar khans, as well as by native princes. Conciliated by 
the former to strengthen and consolidate their dominion, 
by the latter to profit by its services as a mediator be- 
tween themselves, or as an intercessor with their oppress- 
ors, it came to be the only bond which held the nation 
together — the safeguard and bulwark of the national ex- 
istence. This was the most glorious age of the Russian 
Church, distinguished by unswerving patriotism, religious 
zeal, and intense nationality ; the days of its great popu- 
lar heroes and saints, and the epoch when its most cele- 
brated institutions were founded. After the nation had 
issued triumphant from its tribulations, and the empire 
became independent and strong, the power of the Church 
dwindled before that of the State ; it passively protested 
in the person of its only martyr, St. Philip, against the 
encroachments of the tsar, but it never rebelled against 
constituted authority, or strove to check the growth of 
autocratic government. 

The ambition of Boris Godounov led to a recrudescence 
of its power; he encouraged the emancipation of the 
Church from foreign control, in order to win the sym- 



ITS SYNODICAL FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 155 

patby of the clergy and profit by its influence over the 
people, precisely as he established, or consolidated, serf- 
dom to conciliate the nobility and landed proprietors. 
The creation of the patriarchate exalted the Church, and 
increased the dignity and splendor of its position, but, at 
the same time, it severed its connection with the outer 
world and left it alone, exposed without allies abroad, 
without the hope of foreign succor, in the inevitable 
struggle which was to come for pre-eminence between 
the ecclesiastical and the civil powers. This struggle 
was postponed by the political occurrences of the years 
immediately succeeding. Again the Church proved the 
saviour of the national life, and rose, by the force of cir- 
cumstances, and the patriotic devotion of its members, to 
almost undisputed supremacy in the reigns of Michael and 
Alexis Romanoff, and during the patriarchate of Nikon. 

The fall of this mighty prelate meant the future pre- 
dominance of the civil power, and the Church submitted 
with its Avonted humility, accepted the interregnum or- 
dered by Peter the Great, acquiesced in the abolition of 
the patriarchate, and consented to a final reorganization 
under the Holy Synod. 

Its rise at different times, during the extraordinary 
vicissitudes of its fortunes, to almost supreme control in 
the body politic, was, on each occasion, the consequence 
of extraneous and fortuitous circumstances, rather than 
the result of any ambitious effort of its own. Its eleva- 
tion was invariably followed, as the especial cause dis- 
appeared, by its submission to civil authority, and by 
harmonious co-operation with it. It is, however, to be 
observed that this submission related only to the admin- 
istration of Church affairs, and never affected questions 
of dogma, nor of doctrine, raised high above the author- 
ity of the Church itself. 



156 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

The synodical, or federative form, of government is the 
natural and logical one for churches of the Orthodox 
communion, as it adapts itself equally well to all politi- 
cal constitutions. In democratic Greece the Church has 
followed the example given by the Church of autocratic 
Russia, and its organization there, while differing in de- 
tail, is similar in principle. Whatever form among Or- 
thodox Churches the higher, or governing power may 
have assumed, it has never made any pretence to be of 
divine origin, but, whether patriarchate or synod, has 
always been, and been held to be, of human institution ; in 
either case entitled to respect, but with the advantage, on 
the part of the synod, of greater flexibility- of adaptation. 

In Russia, the composition of the synodical council is 
dependent almost entirely on the will of the emperor ; 
nearly all the members, and their number is not limited, 
are appointed by him, but it would be an error to sup- 
pose that he is, in any spiritual sense, like the Pope of 
Rome, the head of the Church. If, in any legislative 
acts, he is so termed, it is only in his capacity of admin- 
istrator of its affairs, and, as such, his authority is re- 
stricted by the canons, by tradition, and by oecumenical 
decrees. All questions of dogma and of discipline are 
beyond his control ; never has a tsar, unless it be the 
demented Paul, claimed any rank in the clerical hie- 
rarchy ; at the altar he yields homage to the priest, in 
common with the humblest of his subjects ; he is simply, 
as he is designated in the catechism, the administrator 
and protector of the Church. 

The Holy Synod takes precedence over all the other 
great bodies of the State ; it replaces the patriarch, with 
all his rights and privileges ; originally, it was more of a 
representative assembly, comprising the different ranks 
of the clergy, and bishops were in a numerical minority ; 



THE MOST HOLY SYNOD, 157 

now, in accordance with the practice of the early Church, 
which placed authority in the hands of its bishops, the 
episcopal element predominates. The three metropoli- 
tans of Kiev, Moscow, and St. Petersburg are entitled to 
membership by right of their offices, and the latter is the 
presiding officer ; the Exarch of Georgia is also admitted 
upon the same ground; the other members are ap- 
pointed by the emperor — some for definite periods, oth- 
ers to hold office during his pleasure ; some in full and 
regular standing, others as supernumeraries or assist- 
ants ; they comprise four or five archbishops, bishops, or 
archimandrites, and two arch-priests of the secular clergy, 
one of whom usually is the chaplain and confessor of the 
emperor, the other the chaplain-general of the army. 
The Synod has its seat at St. Petersburg, and is perma- 
nently in session. The emperor is represented by a 
delegate bearing a title corresponding to attorney-gen- 
eral (ober-procurator), who assists at the meetings, but 
who is not, properly speaking, a member; this official 
is always a layman, frequently a military officer of high, 
rank, and is the personification of the civil authority ; he 
acts as the intermediary between the emperor and the 
Synod ; all communications pass by his hands ; he presents 
to the Synod all laws projected by the government, and 
submits all decisions of the Synod for imperial sanction ; 
he proposes all measures, directs all business, and executes 
all decrees ; no act is valid without his assent, and he has 
the right of veto, if any action of the Synod appears to 
him contrary to the laws of the State. Every year he pre- 
pares statements of the condition of the Church, of the 
clergy, and of religion generally throughout the empire. 
The functions of the Synod are divided among several 
departments. Such of these as exercise supervision over 
clerical discipline, religious censorship, and all ecclesias- 



158 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

tical matters, strictly speaking, come under the imme- 
diate direction of members of the Synod, while others, 
specially charged with care of the schools and of the 
finances of the Church, are placed under the attorney- 
general. All business is transacted in writing, with- 
out oral discussion, or deliberation in open assembly; 
bureaucracy or circumlocution, so generally prevalent 
throughout Kussia, is carried to an extreme, and, as a 
consequence, the real direction of affairs devolves upon 
the various departments, and the members of the Synod 
do little else than sign what is put before them. 

For the nomination of bishops the Synod submits 
three names to the emperor, who generally chooses and 
appoints the first one on the list ; they are subject to the 
authority of the Synod, and each one, in his diocese, is 
assisted by a consistory or council, the members of which 
are named by the Synod, upon the recommendation of 
the bishop. This consistorial body acts chiefly as an 
ecclesiastical tribunal, and has jurisdiction over all cases 
of clerical discipline, or those in which the clergy are 
interested, and over matters relating to marriage and 
divorce ; its acts require the episcopal sanction for their 
validity, and final appeal from its decisions lies to the 
Synod. The functions of this provincial council, within 
its jurisdiction, bear a general resemblance to those of 
the supreme governing body, and are, in like manner, 
shared by several departments ; a lay secretary, appoint- 
ed by the Synod, upon the nomination of the attorney- 
general, and subject to his orders, is charged with duties 
kindred to his own ; the same bureaucratic, centralizing 
tendency exists as at the capital, and a similar controlling 
influence is exercised by the various departments. 

From all the dioceses and provincial consistories con- 
stant reference must be made to the central head, wheth- 



CENTRALIZATION OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 159 

er it be for the erection of, or the removal of, a church 
edifice, for the employment of diocesan funds, for the dis- 
tribution of charitable contributions, for the deposition 
of a priest, or his release from his vows. The bishop 
must present every year full reports upon the condition 
of his bishopric, upon its schools and institutions, upon 
the number of communicants, and of conversions from 
other religions or from dissenting sects ; he cannot be 
absent from his diocese for more than a week without 
special authorization. 

The prodigious centralization noticeable in the ma- 
chinery of Church government in Kussia is the inevita- 
ble result of the constant, close relations with each other 
enforced upon its component parts, and of the intimate 
connection maintained by the Church with the civil au- 
thority. This intimacy is enhanced by the rivalry between 
the regular and the secular clergy ; ecclesiastical honors 
and preferments are monopolized by the former, and 
they are the more prone to subserviency towards the 
State as the source of all power and emolument, while 
for the latter there is no independent religious head at 
home, nor supreme pontiff abroad, to whom they may 
appeal, and they also turn to the civil authority as their 
natural, and only, protection against episcopal despotism. 

While rejoicing in the favor of the State, the Church 
does not apprehend thereby serious danger to its inde- 
pendence as a Church ; confident in the immutability of 
its dogma, which no authority can impugn, and in the 
pious devotion of its adherents, upon which the govern- 
ment dare not trespass, it is fully alive to the fact that 
the interference of the sovereign is limited by the un- 
written law of tradition, and that, to undue encroach- 
ment, it has but to oppose its passive power of inertia, 
and to rely upon the fidelity of its followers. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Clergy, Black and White. — Monasticism and Monasteries.— Par- 
ish Priests. 

In Russia, clerical life is not, as in other countries, sim- 
ply a vocation or a profession, nor do the clergy there, 
as in France before the revolution of 1789, form one of 
the great bodies of the State ; it is a distinct social 
class, set apart from the rest of the world ; a separate 
caste, hereditary, and peculiar in its duties and privileges. 

It is divided into monks, or the regular monastic cler- 
gy, and popes, or the secular parish clergy ; the one is 
popularly termed the black, and the other the white cler- 
gy. The differences in their garb are hardly sufficient 
to explain these designations, for, while monks are al- 
ways attired in black, and wear a long black veil hang- 
ing down behind from the cowl, the popes are not re- 
stricted to white, and often adopt brown, or other sombre 
colors ; one peculiarity is common to them both — long 
hair and flowing beards. 

The radical distinction between the two is marriage ; 
the monks take vows of celibacy, but the popes must 
marry before they can have charge of a parish. In the 
Russian, as generally in Orthodox Churches, the episco- 
pate and all offices of authority are reserved for the un- 
married clergy, who are comparatively few in number, 
while the subordinate and more laborious positions only 
fall to the lot of the married clergy. From this custom 
arise diversity of interests, and a mutual spirit of rivalry 
and antagonism, the more intense in that marriage, abso- 



THE CLERGY.— MONASTICISM. 161 

lutely forbidden to the one and equally obligatory upon 
the other, interposes an impassable barrier between the 
two bodies. A constant struggle, seldom openly avowed, 
but none the less ardent for that reason, is going on, the 
chosen few seeking to maintain their superiority, the oth- 
ers, who comprise the great body of the Church militant, 
striving to rise from their inferior condition, and be free 
from control. As a consequence of this species of dual- 
ism in the Church, there are influences and tendencies at 
work in opposite directions ; the black clergy is the more 
conservative, sympathizing with the principle of authority 
and the maintenance of ancient customs and traditions, 
while the white is inclined to liberalism, and is more 
ready to yield to the spirit of innovation and progress. 

Monasticism has, since its introduction into Kussia, 
been a prominent feature in the history, and in the civil- 
ization of the empire and of the people, but in its nature 
and influence it has been, and is, widely different from 
the same institution in the rest of Europe. It has al- 
ways been simple and primitive in its character, preserv- 
ing still the same unity as at its origin, without change 
or variety in its development ; in form, similar to that 
known in the West during the Middle Ages, prior to the 
days of St. Bernard, never branching out, nor subdividing, 
into many denominations or orders, each with a special 
object or mission. It has lacked enterprise, and mental, 
moral, or spiritual energy ; it has aimed at a contempla- 
tive life, at asceticism, penitence, and the correction of 
the inner man ; it has sought retirement for meditation 
and prayer; it has withdrawn from, and renounced, the 
world, and its ideal of the perfect life has been that of 
the anchorite in the desert, or of the Stylite on his pil- 
lar; its communities have not been created, as in the 
West, for union in the struggle with evil, nor for works 
11 



162 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

of charity and benevolence, nor for earnest propagation 
of the faith, and they have never been centres of intel- 
lectual activity. The names given to the monasteries 
recall the ancient Thebaid ; the greater of them are 
termed " lavra" and " stavropigia ;" the smaller are called 
"skeet" or "poustynia" (hermitages or deserts). The 
catacombs at Kiev, and the crypts of ancient churches 
were not tombs or receptacles for the dead, but were the 
dwellings of early saints. 

This fondness for the solitary life of the anchorite is 
not yet extinct in Russia ; although the government for- 
bids the creation of hermitages, they are still found in 
distant, hidden places, the favorite refuges and resorts of 
the more fanatic among the dissenting sects. 

With the conception of monastic life as it was under- 
stood in Eussia, one simple rule has sufficed for all the 
different communities which have been founded. That 
of St. Basil, which does little more than establish the 
broad principles of conventual discipline, and is gener- 
ally recognized throughout the East, was introduced into 
Russia by the Greeks with the Christian religion, and has 
remained in force, ever since, in all the monastic institu- 
tions of the country. As a consequence of the uniformity 
of organization, no separate orders have ever existed, and 
the Church has been spared the intestine struggle of pow- 
erful rival' communities within its bosom. The larger 
institutions may have sent forth branches, or colonies, 
affiliated with the parent head, but these ramifications 
have disappeared, and the various establishments, under 
one common rule, are independent, each of the other. 

Monastic life has been deficient in variety of develop- 
ment, in concentration and unity of purpose, and in 
diversity of results ; it has exerted less influence upon 
the progress of society, but it has also been the cause of 



MONASTICISM. 1G3 

less embarrassment to both the Church and the State. 
Its action, though less multiform and varied than else- 
where in Europe, has been deeply felt. In Russia, as in 
Gaul and in Germany, monks have been the pioneers of 
civilization, as well as of Christianity. They penetrated 
the vast solitudes of the North and the East, converted 
barbarians and cleared forests, spread the Gospel among 
savage tribes and improved their material condition, and 
population followed after them as they advanced. Sym- 
pathizing and mingling freely with the people, they have 
had profound influence in forming national character, and 
have identified religion with national life. In the centu- 
ries of Avars with Tatars, Lithuanians, Poles, and Swedes, 
monasteries have been the ramparts and bulwarks of the 
national existence, which owes both its origin and its 
preservation to the Church ; in times of anarchy and sub- 
jugation its establishments have been the only havens of 
refuge for letters and learning brought from Byzantium; 
their only ark of safety in the deluge of barbaric invasion. 

The history of the empire can be read in the annals of 
its great lavra. Those of the Petcherski, the convent of 
catacombs on the banks of the Dnieper, embrace the na- 
tion's youth, the age of Kiev, its ancient patrimony; 
while those of the Troitsa cover its growth to maturitv, 
the age of Moscow, its natural capital. 

The great monasteries w r ere, in reality, fortified cities 
of vast extent and dense population, grouping numerous 
churches around their shrines ; in the Troitsa there were 
fourteen, in the Solo vet sk convent seven, in the Simonov 
and Donsko'i five and six. Each name revives the mem- 
ory of great deeds and heroic struggles, and appeals to 
both religious and patriotic sentiment. The walls of the 
Troitsa exhausted the strength of the victorious Poles, 
and preserved the nation s life when Moscow and the 



164 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

empire were prostrate ; Napoleon's armies stopped but a 
day's march, from its gates, and resistance to his invasion 
was encouraged by what the people deemed divine inter- 
position to save this sacred fortress ; it gave shelter to 
tsars against domestic treachery, as well as against 
foreign foes. The Novospasski and Donskoi convents 
checked the Tatars at the entrance to Moscow. Solo- 
vetsk defied the Swedes. 

Popular reverence for these holy citadels is enhanced 
by the natural beauties of their situations, the untold 
treasures and precious relics which they guard, and the 
hallowed spots which they commemorate. The Petcher- 
ski was the cradle of Russian monastic life, the home of 
Nestor and chroniclers of old ; it is the shrine of innu- 
merable saints, whose fives were passed in the mysterious 
caves where their bones are yet objects of pious venera- 
tion and worship; from the hillside of the Dnieper it 
looks out upon a broad expanse of meadow and stream 
as boundless as the ocean. The red-brick towers of the 
Troi'tsa overhang picturesque ravines ; its vaults are piled 
with incalculable riches, and its churches are sanctified by 
most sacred Icons. Iverski, upon an island of the beau- 
tiful Lake Yaldai, is shrouded in magnificent forests. 
Yoskresensk, the " New Jerusalem," is planned to repro- 
duce the most revered sanctuaries of Palestine. Solo- 
vetsk, renowned for the austere piety of its brotherhood, 
is surrounded by scenery peculiarly impressive from its 
solitary and desolate grandeur, upon the bleak shores of 
the White Sea. Localities, fortunate in the presence and 
neighborhood of these holy shrines, are held by the peo- 
ple in especial veneration, and Peter the Great, in found- 
ing the city which bears his name, endeavored to invest 
it with similar title to popular regard by transporting 
thither, from Yladimir, the relics of the great hero and 



DECLINE IN THE MONASTIC SPIRIT. 165 

saint Alexander Nevski, and enshrining them in a vast 
convent, raised to rank with the famous lavra of the 
Petcherski and the Troitsa. 

At the great festivals of the Church these religious 
centres are still thronged by pilgrims, but their perma- 
nent inmates and regular votaries are now but few, and 
may be counted by scores, instead of by hundreds. The 
spirit of monasticism is less fervent than in former days, 
and the geographical distribution of existing monasteries 
marks the change. They are more numerous in the an- 
cient cities, around the old capitals, Kiev and Moscow, 
and within the former republics, Novgorod and Pskov ; 
less so in provinces recently colonized and peopled. Their 
numbers actually correspond to the antiquity, rather than 
to the density, of the population. In the empire there 
are in all about 550 ; in every bishopric there is at least 
one, the superior of which is, by right of his office, mem- 
ber of the diocesan council ; they are served by about 
5900 monks and 4900 nuns in- full standing, with 4100 
lay brethren, and 13,000 lay sisters and novices. 

The causes of the noticeable decline in the monastic 
spirit, while religion retains firm hold upon the people, 
are both moral and political in their nature. Monasti- 
cism in Russia has never felt the renewing and vivifying 
influences springing from works of active charity and 
benevolence, while the more fervently devout and pious- 
ly inclined of the population have been drawn away from 
the national Church, and from its institutions, by dissent- 
ing sects. The ready favor with which schismatic doc- 
trines were received by the monks, as, for instance, at 
Solovetsk, brought them into direct antagonism with the 
authorities of the Church, who, determined to stamp out 
Dissent at any cost, subjected all religious institutions to 
strict supervision and severe regulations. The persistent 



166 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

opposition manifested by the monasteries to the reforms 
of Peter the Great aroused his anger, and arrayed all 
the power of the State against them. Every restriction, 
short of absolute suppression, was imposed ; their prop- 
erty was sequestered, and their spiritual influence under- 
mined by government interference, until the lower class- 
es only held them in reverence ; their number, and that 
of their inmates, was arbitrarily reduced; they were 
treated as institutions of the State, and in the choice of 
their superiors, as well as in all the detail of their ad- 
ministration, they were subjected to government control, 
exercised through the Synod ; entrance to the monastic 
body was made difficult by stringent regulations, and the 
life made irksome by severe and vexatious discipline, cal- 
culated to repel and disgust the better class of those who 
felt a vocation for religious seclusion. By a singular 
contradiction, all high ecclesiastical dignities were re- 
served for the members of the monastic body, thus sys- 
tematically degraded in general estimation. The effect 
of this policy, so fraught with danger to the standing 
and repute of the upper clergy, was counteracted by the 
practice of conferring these positions of responsibility 
only upon the elect, whose career in the seminaries and 
academies had been marked by ability. To graduates 
of brilliant promise every conceivable inducement to 
take the vows was offered ; the limit of age was reduced 
from thirty years to twenty-five, and rapid promotion 
was assured. A superior class among the monks was 
thus formed, for whom monastic life was but a means 
for an end, an easy and certain path to power and influ- 
ence ; while for the great majority it was a dreary, monot- 
onous routine of ceremonial religious rites, under rigid 
discipline strictly enforced. 
A few only of the monasteries, and those are of mi* 



MONASTERIES. 1G7 

nor importance, are dependent solely upon their own re- 
sources ; by far the greater number, including the more 
celebrated, receive an allowance from the government as 
an indemnity for their sequestered estates. 

First among these are the great lavra — the Petcher- 
ski at Kiev, the Tro'itsa at Moscow, Alexander JSevski at 
St. Petersburg, and to these three there has recently been 
added Potcha'i'ef, in Yolhymnia, the chief monastery of 
the Uniates. Their appellation " lavra " is derived from 
the Greek "laura," a street or open place, which des- 
ignation was applied in the East to communities of an- 
chorites who lived in union, but occupied single and de- 
tached cells, in contradistinction to ccenobia, in which 
the inmates lived together under a common roof. 1 Each 
of these establishments depends upon the neighboring 
metropolitan, Avho makes it his official residence. 

Next in rank are the " stavropigia," 2 seven or eight in 
number, comprising several of the large monasteries in 
and around Moscow ; they are exempted from the juris- 
diction of the bishop of the diocese in which they are sit- 
uated; formerly, they depended immediately upon the 
patriarch, who, at their foundation, took them under his 
special charge, and, at their consecration, sent the large 
double cross which surmounts them ; from this circum- 
stance is derived their name. Now they depend directly 
upon the Holy Synod, as succeeding to the rights of the 
patriarch. The remainder of the monasteries are divided 
into three classes, according to their importance. 

The number of monks or nuns in each is fixed by stat- 
ute; the lavra have about a hundred in full standing, 
and as many more lay brethren and novices ; the Stav- 



1 Neander, vol. iii., p. 334. 

2 From cravpog, a cross, and niiyveiv, to place. 



168 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

pigia and the establishments of the first class have each 
thirty-three, the others still fewer; the regulations in 
this respect are relaxed according to the necessities of 
each locality ; rural convents are allowed more inmates 
than those in cities, but the tendency of the reformatory 
measures now contemplated is, from motives of economy, 
to limit the number to the actual requirements of the 
service in each case, and to bring the monks strictly un- 
der the system of life in common, in order, by diminish- 
ing the expenses, to increase the funds that may be ap- 
propriated to the episcopal revenues, to the support of 
the poorer clergy, and to the maintenance of schools and 
hospitals. 

The monasteries, as a body, are possessed of enormous 
wealth in immobilized property ; they are rich in pre- 
cious stones, pearls, and jewels, in vases of gold and sil- 
ver, in furniture, ornaments, and objects of art of great 
value, the accumulations of centuries. These treasures, 
in many cases of fabulous amount, are unproductive and 
inalienable, sacred, as belonging to the altar. Some of 
these institutions have large incomes of their own, de- 
rived from lands formerly uncultivated, which, supposed 
to be of no value, escaped sequestration when their vil- 
lages and serfs were taken by the State ; from fisheries, 
and mills on streams formerly neglected, and from gifts 
and bequests sanctioned by special authorization. These 
revenues, where they exist, together with the government 
allowances, constitute but a portion of their actual re- 
sources. The sacred relics and miraculous pictures, which 
no convent is without, are objects of devout worship and 
superstitious veneration ; they attract immense crowds of 
devotees, the aggregate of whose offerings is very large. 
At the Petcherski and the Tro'i'tsa pilgrims are reckoned 
by hundreds of thousands, and none are so poor but leave 



MONASTERIES; THEIR WEALTH.— NUNNERIES. 1G9 

their mite upon the altar. The holy images and wonder- 
working Madonnas are carried to the homes of the sick 
and infirm ; Our Lady of Iberia, most revered of all, has 
horses and carriages kept for her service, and, it is said, 
brings in to her chapel at Moscow $50,000 a year. At 
stated periods, these sacred images are borne through the 
neighboring villages in solemn processions, and reap rich 
harvests from the contributions of the faithful, who eager- 
ly vie for the honor of their visit. As, in the olden time, 
great princes and lords were wont to don the monkish 
garb at the approach of death, so now all Russians wish 
to be buried near the tomb of some one of the saints of 
the Church, and the privilege of reposing in ground hal- 
lowed by their near presence is made a prolific source of 
income to the convents or churches which possess some 
holy man's remains. 

For women there are fewer retreats than for men, and, 
by published statistics, there would appear to be fewer 
nuns than monks ; the official lists, however, do not give 
the total number of females within convent walls, as 
they include only those who, over forty years of age, 
have taken the veil. In point of fact, these institutions 
have more inmates than the monasteries ; they are open 
to novices, and to lay sisters of any age ; many young 
girls and women seek shelter within them, and remain 
there permanently, without consummating the act which 
would separate them definitively from the world, free, 
at any moment, to re-enter society, but generally con- 
tent to pass their days in voluntary seclusion. An en- 
tirely different conception of monastic institutions, and 
of monastic life, whether for monks or nuns, prevails 
in Russia from that in Catholic countries. Charity, be- 
nevolence, or missionary enterprise are not the essen- 
tial features, although they may be incident to the life. 



170 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Among the monks, for a few, it is the commencement of 
an ambitious career that may lead to power and station ; 
for some others, more humble, yet devoutly inclined, it 
affords opportunity for meditation and prayer, and for 
growth in personal piety; for the many, it means free- 
dom from military service and taxation, and escape from 
bodily punishment ; for all, both monks and nuns, it is a 
sure refuge from poverty and want, a shelter for solitary 
or improvident old age. 

The secular, married, or white clergy form the sacer- 
dotal body ; until recently it has been, by law as well as 
by practice, a close, hereditary corporation, a tribe, like 
that of Levi, consecrated to the service of the altar. This 
peculiarity of its condition arose by degrees, as a neces- 
sary consequence of serfdom and of the ancient constitu- 
tion of society. The serf, bound to the soil, was prohib- 
ited from entering the Church, as, by so doing, he defraud- 
ed his master of his toil ; and the noble proprietor was 
debarred, under penalty of the loss of his estates and of 
the privileges of his rank ; the clergy could, therefore, 
be recruited only from among those of its own class, and 
a separate clerical body was thus gradually formed, bound 
to the altar, as the peasant was bound to the land. Sons 
of priests were compelled to attend the parish schools, 
and parish offices w r ere filled by graduates of these schools. 
Custom, and Church law, had made marriage a condition 
of ordination, and as neither sons nor daughters of popes 
could marry out of the class to which they belonged, in- 
termarriage of one with the other became obligatory, 
and this clerical class was thus further transformed, by 
degrees, into a distinct and special caste. The necessity 
for the existence of this peculiar order of things disap- 
peared with the causes which gave rise to it. In 1861, 
serfdom was abolished ; three years later, the ranks of the 



THE SECULAR, OR WHITE CLERGY. Ul 

clergy were thrown open to all, and children of priests 
were freely admitted to other careers. While in theory, 
and before the law, these distinctions of class and caste 
have been abrogated, practically they still exist as a 
marked characteristic of Eussian society, and their per- 
sistence springs from the difficulty of rapidly eifecting 
radical changes among a people imbued, above all others, 
with regard for ancient usages ; the long-continued Levit- 
ical organization of the parish clergy created habits of 
life and thought not to be easily eradicated, and, as a 
matter of fact, the clerical body still remains a class 
apart. 

The inheritance of priestly rank tended to make the 
charges and the emoluments of the office also hereditary, 
and to establish, for the priest, a quasi vested right of pro- 
prietorship in the parish living. The pope endeavored to 
transmit his curacy to his children, not only as a legacy 
to a son, but also, when he had no son to succeed him 
in his charge, as a marriage portion for a daughter ; and 
these pretensions, very generally realized in practice, 
came near securing the force of law. They were the 
more leniently considered by the authorities of both the 
State and the Church, from the necessity, devolving upon 
them at the death of a pope, of making provision for his 
family, and from their natural wish to impose this bur- 
den upon his successor ; the situation was also further 
complicated by the circumstance that, usually, the par- 
sonage and dwellings belonged, not to the parish, or to 
the village, which gave only the land necessary for the 
pope's support, but to the incumbent himself, and the 
new-comer was obliged to arrange with the heirs to ob- 
tain possession ; as marriage was obligatory upon him, 
the simplest mode of settlement was for him to marry 
into the family ; he could not espouse the widow, to 



172 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

whom, as well as to the pope, a second marriage is for- 
bidden ; so he took the daughter, whose dowry was the 
curacy, and pensioned off the rest of the relations when 
he entered upon his charge. This custom, sanctioned by 
the usage of centuries, was rendered unnecessary by the 
laws of 1864, but it still prevails, and is not likely to 
disappear until proper provision is made for the families 
of deceased popes. 

The principle of heredity extended also to the subor- 
dinate offices of the parish church. After the priest and 
the deacon, who are received into holy orders, comes the 
great body of the minor white clergy, subdivided into 
many classes. In recent synodical reports the total 
number of popes is given as 37,300, of whom from 1400 
to 1500 are proto-popes or arch-priests, the highest digni- 
ty to which a member of the white clergy may attain ; 
they are the superiors in parishes having two priests ; 
they are often appointed inspectors over the parish cler- 
gy, and are qualified for a seat in the Synod. Of deacons 
there are 11,500 ; they assist the pope at the altar, and 
may, at some ceremonies, as at funerals, replace him. 
The next, or third class, which is very numerous, nearly 
600,000, comprises clerks, beadles^ vergers, singers, sextons, 
bell-ringers, and all the minor officers ; each of these sub- 
divisions is separate from the others ; its members inter- 
marry, and its functions are practically hereditary. 
These three orders of popes, deacons, and the minor 
clergy are, and always remain, entirely distinct one 
from the other, and do not form successive grades in 
the parish hierarchy. 

Educational institutions for the secular clergy are of 
three kinds — district or parish schools, seminaries, and 
academies. Graduates of the first-named, in which in- 
struction is very elementary, are fitted only for the sub- 



EDUCATION OF THE WHITE CLERGY.— POPES. 173 

ordinate offices ; the deacons, and the great majority of 
popes, issue from the second ; the more distinguished 
members of the priesthood pass through the third, 
which correspond to the theological faculties of Euro- 
pean universities. Merit is by no means ignored in con- 
ferring ecclesiastical appointments, and the student who 
fails in his examination for the priesthood cannot hope 
to rise above the diaconate. The course of study at the 
seminaries is varied and comprehensive ; it includes an- 
cient, or liturgical, Slavonic, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and 
one modern language, mathematical and physical sci- 
ences, history, philosophy, and theology. The defect of 
the system is not in the extent of the field mapped out ; 
its deficiencies, which are many and real, arise from the 
short time given to each department, and the consequent 
superficial nature of the knowledge imparted, from the 
use of antiquated text-books, from the absence of a cath- 
olic and liberal spirit in the method of instruction, caused 
by Eussian isolation and want of intercourse with the 
Western world, and by neglect of modern progress in 
ideas and sciences ; they are aggravated by the youth 
and inexperience of the instructors, who are frequently 
changed, and seldom adopt teaching as a profession, but 
accept a tutor's post temporarily, merely as a step in 
their career of official preferment. 

The Russian pope, notwithstanding the imperfect nat- 
ure of his education, is, intellectually, much superior to 
the community in which he lives, and if the influence 
which he exerts be less than might be expected of him, 
this must be attributed to the depressing and demoraliz- 
ing conditions of his life, to his want of means, and to 
his social ostracism. 

He is wretchedly paid : in cities, and where the pres- 
ence of clergy of other denominations renders it desira- 



174 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ble, from motives of policy, that his position should be 
decent, and more befitting his sacred office, the salary 
may reach 300 roubles ' (at present about $150), but on 
the average, his annual stipend does not exceed 100 rou- 
bles ($50), a miserable pittance which cannot support 
him and his family in respectability. He becomes, 
therefore, dependent upon, and is at the mercy of, his 
parishioners ; for the cultivation of the land allotted for 
his support the labor of his own hands cannot suffice, 
and he must rely upon the gratuitous and grudgingly- 
given assistance of the peasants, who can, themselves, 
barely keep body and soul together; he must eke out 
his meagre existence by gifts and offerings of his poor 
and scanty flock ; these contributions might afford a de- 
cent livelihood, were not the larger part reclaimed by 
the Synod or the diocese, and the slender portion re- 
maining still to be shared by him with the minor clergy 
of his parish. Necessity compels him to wring, or cajole, 
all that is possible from his congregation ; his daily bread 
depends upon it, and every ceremony he performs, every 
sacrament he confers, is bargained for and haggled over 
as it can only be done in Russia; bridal-couples have 
left the altar unmarried, and bodies have been buried 
secretly, because the pope and the peasant could not agree 
upon a price ; the pious and the indifferent, the foreign 
Jew and the native Christian, the Orthodox believer and 
the Dissenter, are all under contribution, and the pope's 
most engrossing occupation is to watch greedily over 
every member of his parish, to see that none evade the 
payment of dues he may rightfully exact, or beg. The 
task is arduous, for the occasions are many, and of diverse 

1 The mint value of the rouble is 65.8 cents, but in recent years, by 
depreciation, it has fallen to about 50 cents. 



rorES; their social condition. 175 

nature. Religion enters very largely into Russian daily 
life: at every important event, at every festival or anni- 
versary, when starting upon, or returning from, a jour- 
ney, at the inception, or completion, of every undertak- 
ing, a blessing is invoked, or thanks are rendered ; and 
these domestic incidents, as well as ceremonies performed 
within the church doors, are made remunerative to the 
parish oificers. At Christinas, Easter, and Twelfth-day 
the pope and his clergy, in their sacerdotal robes, loudly 
chanting the hymn " Gospodi pomilui /" (Lord, have mer- 
cy upon us !), go their rounds, from house to house, to 
bless, and sprinkle with holy water, the homes of their pa- 
rishioners ; they sometimes meet with but scant courtesy, 
and are dismissed from the gate with alms, as trouble- 
some beggars, but, generally, they are welcomed with the 
free hospitality that characterizes the Russian people, and 
are expected to do justice to the viands and liquors set 
before them ; to refuse to drink would be an affront, and 
often, before the day is over, these holy men are in most 
lamentable condition. The peasant, for whom drunken- 
ness is a venial sin, is more amused than scandalized by 
the exhibition ; but, Avhen the time for feasting has gone 
by, the gluttony and intemperance he merrily encouraged 
are made a reproach. " Am I a pope, that I should dine 
twice ?" is a popular saying, significant of the light es- 
teem in which the people hold their pastors ; they deem 
it even a sign of ill-luck to meet a pope by the wayside, 
while the better classes do not hesitate to show openly 
their want of regard. The priest's ecclesiastical superi- 
ors are not more considerate ; he is seldom admitted to 
his bishop's presence, and he dreads the pastoral visita- 
tion. He is treated with contumely, deprived of all in- 
dependence, and drilled to passive submission ; his mental 
culture ceases, perforce, when he leaves the seminary, and 



176 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

he is as incapable of responding to the religious wants of 
the devout as he is of withstanding the progress of infi- 
delity. Despised by, and isolated from, the community 
upon which he is dependent, his whole life is a ceaseless, 
wretched struggle for material existence ; all devotional 
feeling is crushed out of his soul, and religion, for him, is 
debased to mere form and ceremonial, by which to earn 
a precarious subsistence. 

The obligation of marriage weighs heavily upon him. 
While great advantages may result from it in many 
points of view, and in communities where, as in Protes- 
tant countries, the minister, properly remunerated, finds, 
in an intelligent, educated wife, a helpmate and co-work- 
er, in Kussia it is far otherwise. Even at the present 
day, the married pope may not aspire to the higher dig- 
nities of the Church ; he cannot obtain a curacy without 
a wife ; frequently she brings it to him as her dowry, 
and he loses it at her death. She feels, and makes him 
feel, her superiority as the moneyed partner in the asso- 
ciation ; she is generally without education, and, in her 
poverty-stricken household, is overwhelmed by domestic 
cares ; she can neither afford him intellectual companion- 
ship, nor is she competent to share, or to encourage him, 
in pious and charitable work. Children come to increase 
his responsibilities and anxieties. Only recently have 
other careers than the priesthood been opened for them ; 
and, while they are eager to embrace them, and escape 
from the sordid cares and degradations they have wit- 
nessed in their homes, they seldom find the opportunity ; 
although they are raised, by education, above the laborer 
and the peasant, poverty, social prejudices, and want of 
influential relations check their aspirations ; but too fre- 
quently they help to swell the multitude of disappoint- 
ed, discontented, and ambitious youths who, hostile to 



REFORMS AMONG THE PARISH CLERGY, 1 77 

the existing order of things, fretting under restrictions 
imposed by custom and habit, partially educated, and 
their minds filled with crude revolutionary ideas, are a 
serious danger in the body politic. 

The welfare of the State and the good of the Church, 
alike, imperatively demand amelioration in the condition 
of the parish clergy. For twenty and more years past 
the question has been under examination, and important 
reforms have been commenced. The necessities of the 
government have restricted the appropriations for the 
clerical budget, but it has grown from one million of 
roubles in L833 to ten millions in 1872, and the remu- 
neration of the clergy has been raised. The number of 
parishes and of priests has been reduced, with, in each 
case, the same object in view — by diminishing the number 
of the recipients, to increase the share of each ; but in this 
direction the measure of reform, limited by the immense 
extent of the empire and the sparseness of its population, 
has been pushed too far. 

There are now in Kussia about 43,000 churches and 
chapels, but while the cities, especially the more ancient, 
are abundantly supplied with religious edifices and an 
officiating clergy, the rural parishes are already too large. 
Of priests, in regular standing, there are less than 38,000, 
too few for the pastoral work. In Siberia, and in the 
frontier governments, the want of priests has been se- 
verely felt, and it has recently been necessary to ordain 
Seminarists, who had not completed their studies, and to 
recruit the clergy from students of lay institutions. 
When, as in these provinces, great distances separate the 
people from their places of worship, and the ministers 
of the altar are few, apathy and indifference are en- 
gendered, or schismatic and dissenting doctrines flourish 
without contradiction, and the prosperity of the Church 
12 



178 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

is imperilled. The only reduction that may be yet safe- 
ly made is among the multitudes of the minor clergy, 
the most ignorant and the most useless, whose services 
could, for the most part, be dispensed with without dan- 
ger, and perhaps to advantage. 

With efforts for the improvement of the material con- 
dition of the parish clergy, there is also a strong inclina- 
tion to raise their social position. By marriage they are 
debarred from the episcopal dignity. Church discipline 
ordains that a bishop may not be married in the flesh ; 
according to Timothy, he must be " the husband of one 
wife,*' and as, by a subtle interpretation of the text, he 
has already one spouse, the Church, he can have no oth- 
er, and the episcopate remains the monopoly of the black 
clergy; but positions of trust and eminence are being 
brought within the reach of married priests, especially 
of those who are connected with the higher clerical edu- 
cation. A pope has recently been appointed rector of 
the ecclesiastical academy of St. Petersburg, an impor- 
tant post, hitherto always held by a monk. Measures of 
this nature, persistently pursued, would inaugurate a new 
era of reform, and, while instilling into the Church a 
more catholic and liberal spirit, would open, for the white 
clergy, a vast and hitherto closed sphere of usefulness. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Raskol. — Early Heresies.— Attempted Reforms in Church.— Ni- 
kon.— Peter the Great.— The Popovtsi and the Bezpopovtsi.— Polit- 
ical Aspect of the Raskol. 

The Orthodox Russian Church, for upwards of two 
hundred years, has been disturbed by numerous myste- 
rious sects, almost wholly unknown abroad, and but par- 
tially understood at home. The religious movement 
from which they derive their being, generally designated 
as the " Raskol," 2 or the " Schism," is peculiarly Russian 
and national in its origin and character. It has never 
extended beyond the limits of the empire, and, within 
them, it is restricted chiefly to the more ancient prov- 
inces, where the population is essentially Muscovite ; it 
is of most diverse nature, absolutely without unity in its 
development, subdivided into a thousand different branch- 
es, separate and distinct one from the other, having only 
for their common object opposition to the established 
Church. It is exclusively a popular movement ; it had 
its rise, and still exists, in the peasant's hut, and among 
the common multitude, without sympathy from, or affili- 
ation with, the educated or upper classes of society, and 
it indicates a mental and social condition of the people 
which has no parallel in other lands. 

Both German Protestantism and Russian Raskol pre- 
serve the stamp of their similar religious origin, as issu- 
ing each from an established State Church, but here the 

1 Raskol is a Russian word meaning the cleft, the rupture. 



180 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

resemblance ceases, until it is again apparent in analo- 
gous results. 

In the West, Dissent has generally proceeded from a 
spirit of investigation, doubt, and inquiry ; from a desire 
for libert}^, and from impatience of spiritual control ; but 
in Russia it has sprung from diametrically opposite 
causes — the obstinacy of ignorance, persistent reverence 
for the past, and obedience to authority. 

In the one case, the human soul has sought freedom 
from the trammels of form and ceremony to satisfy its 
aspirations towards an ideal, higher life ; in the other, 
superstitious regard for ancient usages, devotion to ex- 
ternal rites, have been the predominant influences. From 
a common starting-point the two movements have pro- 
gressed in steadily diverging directions, but, while an- 
tagonistic in the principle of their development, they 
have arrived at similar results, inasmuch as the Raskol, 
rejecting the authority of the Church, by which alone 
unity of faith could be preserved, has recognized the 
right of free interpretation of mysterious, though immu- 
table, dogmas, and accepted all the vagaries of individ- 
ual opinions regarding them, thereby creating infinite 
variety of belief. 

In the Middle Ages, during the constant wars between 
the appanaged princes, heresies and religious controver- 
sies were rife in Russia, as elsewhere. Each petty sover- 
eign, as he arrived at power, endeavored to enlist the in- 
fluence of the Church in his own behalf ; three metro- 
politans, in the twelfth century, claimed, at the same 
time, the ecclesiastical throne at Kiev ; and the disturb- 
ances within the Church, from their rival pretensions, 
permitted the growth of heretical doctrines, which re- 
lated, however, not to fundamental dogmas, but only to 
external observances. Nestor, bishop of Rostov, accused 



EARLY HERESIES.— THE STRIGOLNIKI. 181 

of favoring them, was summoned to Constantinople for 
his justification, about 11G2 ; and, during his absence, 
Leon, a neighboring prelate, usurped charge of his dio- 
cese. He openly professed and encouraged the practices 
laid to the charge of Nestor, and which, while at vari- 
ance with canonical rule, aimed at stricter observance of 
Church discipline. lie preached the necessity of abstain- 
ing from meat at the festivals of the Nativity and the 
Epiphany, whenever they should fall upon a Wednes- 
day or a Friday. Nestor was acquitted and returned, 
but the heresy had meanwhile assumed such proportions 
as to necessitate further reference to the patriarch, be- 
fore whom Leon was cited to appear, and by whom he 
was tried and condemned. This authoritative decision 
was set at naught by Const antine II., Metropolitan of 
Kiev, a native Russian, who shared the opinions advo- 
cated by Leon, and supported them by his authority. 

This religious movement, the first of which any record 
exists within the Russian Church, is, in its ceremonial 
character, typical of the dissensions which arose in sub- 
sequent centuries ; it was swallowed up and forgotten in 
the civil commotions distracting the country, but, in con- 
nection with it, the devotional disposition of the people 
was manifested in the popular belief that to divine dis- 
pleasure, aroused by the defection of the head of the 
Church, was to be attributed the sack and ruin of Kiev, 
the holy city, in 11G8, by a coalition of the appanaged 
princes, under Andrew Bogoloubsky of Souzdal. 1 

In 1370 the sect of the Strigolniki 2 appeared. They 
took their name from the craft of their founder, one 



1 Karamsin, vol. ii., p. 395; Mouravief, p. 39. 

2 Karamsin, vol. v., p. 130; Mouravief, p. 6o, and note, p. 379. Stri- 
golnik is derived from streetch, to shear. 



182 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Karp 3 a sheep or wool shearer, a man of the people, with 
whom was joined Nikita, a deacon of the Church. The 
movement was a popular protest against the greed, cov- 
etousness, and corruption of the clergy, and it spread rap- 
idly among the lower classes at Pskov and Novgorod. 
Its founders commenced by railing at, and finally reject- 
ing, the clergy altogether, as being a human institution, 
rendered despicable by the ignorance, degradation, and 
covetousness of its members ; they alleged, by author- 
ity of St. Paul, that any Christian brother was empow- 
ered to teach the Gospel, and, for priests, they substituted 
leaders chosen freely among themselves. They denied 
the rite of episcopal ordination, and that the imposition 
of hands could endow the clergy with any divine power 
of imparting the grace of the Holy Ghost ; this power 
they claimed for every believer, as an essential privilege 
of Church membership, by which all brethren were invest- 
ed with the rights of spiritual priesthood. They renounced 
auricular confession and priestly absolution, as being con- 
trary to God's commands to confess one's sins to Him, 
and to bow before Him alone ; they rejected the priest's 
office in baptism and communion, and administered these 
sacraments one to another. To chant psalms over the 
dead, and to offer up prayers and oblations for their 
souls, they declared to be an innovation of the devil, prac- 
tised by his agents, the priests, to satisfy their greed and 
covetousness, by the fees they earned. Nikita, degraded 
from his office, was thrown into prison, and Karp, victim 
of the fickleness of popular favor, was, at the instigation 
of his enemies, the priests, drowned by a mob in the 
river Yolkov. The sect was suppressed, so far as out- 
ward manifestations went, but the leaven of its teachings 
remained fermenting in the popular mind. 

A century later, about 1470, a heresy, known as that of 



THE SECT OF THE JUDAIZERS. 183 

the " Jedovstchina," ' or the sect of the Judaizers, was 
discovered at Novgorod. It was introduced from Lithu- 
ania by a Learned Jew, Zachariah, a man profoundly 
versed in the cabalistic arts, generally believed, in those 
days, to be the peculiar inheritance of his race, and the 
source of Solomon's fabled wisdom. Taught in secret, 
it had already acquired formidable proportions before it 
was detected, it was supposed to have been grafted 
upon the former errors of the Strigolniki, which, not yet 
entirely forgotten, still remained latent in the mysteri- 
ous undercurrents of popular belief ; there was, however, 
no apparent affiliation or resemblance, save as regards a 
common hatred of the priesthood and opposition to cler- 
ical authority. This new sect rejected entirely the doc- 
trines of the Christian religion ; it denied the divinity, 
and even the existence of the Saviour, proclaiming that 
the Messiah was yet to come. Apart from circumcision, 
it inculcated the tenets of the Jewish faith ; promulgated 
in mystery, it was readily received by a credulous, igno- 
rant people, chafing under the onerous exactions of a 
grasping, covetous priesthood, which it despised more 
heartily than it feared. The adherents of this sect were 
scrupulously observant of all the rites and ceremonies 
of the Orthodox Church, and, by their crafty dissimula- 
tion, for a long period they escaped discovery. Among 
Zachariah's early proselytes were two priests of Novgo- 
rod, Alexis and Dionysius, who, while secretly spreading 
error, maintained unblemished reputations as faithful 
ministers of the Church ; by their apparent zeal and de- 
votion they gained the confidence of the great prince 
Ivan III., and were summoned by him to Moscow ; 



1 Karamsin, vol. vi. , p. 242 ; Mouravief, p. 89, and note, p. 383. See 
above, p. 43. From Jsdovsivo— Judaism. 



184: THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

there he installed them as archpriests or deans, one in 
the Cathedral of the Assumption, the other in the Church 
of the Archangel. At the capital their efforts were, for 
a while, crowned with success ; many in high position, 
among them Feodor Kouritsin, secretary of the prince, 
Helena, his daughter-in-law, and Zosimus, an archiman- 
drite, became their disciples. The latter, by the influence 
of Alexis over the tsar, was, by him, arbitrarily appointed 
metropolitan of Moscow in 1491. Gennadius, Bishop of 
Novgorod, was the first whose suspicions were aroused ; 
his representations were unheeded by Gerontius, then 
metropolitan, an aged and indolent prelate ; but subse- 
quent and more earnest appeals to the tsar, as defender of 
the faith, induced him to convene a council of the Church 
in 1505. Notwithstanding the protection and connivance 
of Zosimos, who presided as metropolitan, this assembly, 
moved by the vehement denunciations of Gennadius, 
aided by the hegumen of the Yolokamsk monastery, St. 
Joseph, one of the most learned and enlightened men of 
his day, anathematized these schismatic and dangerous 
doctrines. 

Alexis, meanwhile, had died, but Dionysius, with the 
tsar's secretary, and many of their adherents in high ec- 
clesiastic and civil office, were condemned and handed 
over to the secular arm for punishment at the stake; 
Zosimos was deposed, but his deposition was attributed 
to intemperance and incapacity, in order to avert from 
the Church the scandal of punishing the apostasy of its 
head. The heresy was stifled, if not thoroughly erad- 
icated. 

Popular sympathy with these early religious move- 
ments seems to have been excited, both by the dislike 
and contempt felt for an ignorant, greedy, and rapacious 
priesthood, and by a preference, already manifested, for 



FORMALISM AMONG THE TEOPLE AND THE CLERGY. 185 

ancient and primitive forms of worship, as more akin to, 
and in harmony with, the earliest, and consequently the 
most reliable, revelations of divine truth. Already, in 
these obscure dissensions of the Middle Ages, the funda- 
mental principle of the llaskol — that is to say, scrupu- 
lous regard for the letter of the law, formalism — begins 
to assert itself. An annalist of Novgorod, in the fifteenth 
century, mournfully complains that some of the clergy 
have impiously changed the ancient invocation of, " Lord ! 
have pity upon us !" for " O Lord ! have pity upon us !" 

The manner in which the Russian people were con- 
verted to Christianity, suddenly, by order, as it were, 
made religion appear to them as consisting in form, in 
words, rites, and ceremonies. There had been among them 
no gradual assimilation of the truth ; they had received no 
previous preparation by long-continued teaching, as in 
the West ; they still retained their former customs, were 
still imbued with their ancient superstitions, and were too 
ignorant to fully comprehend, or appreciate, the pure and 
elevated morality of the Christian faith. Their rulers com- 
manded, and they obeyed, submissively transferring their 
allegiance from the idol to the cross, worshipping at the 
altar in the same spirit as before their pagan shrines. 
The clergy were hardly more enlightened than the peo- 
ple ; for them, also, the letter replaced the spirit, and 
they deemed their functions limited to the exact repeti- 
tion of external observances. 

By the ignorance and carelessness of scribes and copy- 
ists, the liturgy, and the Church-books were soon filled 
with errors, which, hallowed by constant use, passed into 
general acceptation, and were held in superstitious ven- 
eration by both the minister and the worshipper. The 
strange interpolations, the contradictions, the capricious 
readings of the text, seemed the more worthy of rever- 



186 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ence as they were the more obscure. They were sacred 
formulas, full of hidden, mysterious meanings, and, from 
being capable of divers interpretations, were the source 
of many singular theories and eccentric teachings, based 
on what was received as revealed of God. 

The necessity of careful revision and correction of the 
books, the ritual, and the service of the Church was, at 
an early period, felt to be imperative by many having 
authority in both Church and State. In the sixteenth 
century Yassili IV. appealed to Constantinople for com- 
petent assistance. Maximus, a Greek theologian of vast 
erudition and earnest piety, was sent from Mount Athos, 
and assumed direction of the work. He was favorably 
received by the tsar, and supported by the more enlight- 
ened prelates of the Church, but his efforts were rendered 
futile by the unreasoning fanaticism of the people and 
the bigotry of most of the clergy, envious of honors 
shown to a foreigner. The metropolitan Daniel, an am- 
bitious and intolerant Churchman, was a bitter opponent 
of the contemplated changes, and his hostility was in- 
creased by jealousy of Maximus' s influence with the mon- 
arch ; this mild and pious monk, an uncompromising de- 
fender of the laws and canons of the Church, soon fell a 
victim to court and clerical intrigue, and was condemned 
by a council for daring to tamper with the ancient and 
sacred formulas and rites. 

Ivan IY., the " terrible " tsar, was deeply read in the- 
ological learning, and in early life evinced great solici- 
tude for the Church. He resumed the task, commenced 
by his father, of correcting and purifying the books and 
ritual, and convened, for the purpose, the council known 
as that of the Hundred Chapters, in 1551. Its decisions, 
of which no authentic record remains, appear to have 
been tainted by the prejudices and the ignorance of the 



CORRECTIONS IN THE CHURCH ROOKS. 187 

age; they sanctified by their authority the superstitious 
practices existing, which, thus approved, took' deeper root 
among the people, while the errors in the book's remain- 
ing unaltered acquired additional confirmation. The in- 
troduction of the printing-press at the same period served 
to disseminate more widely the books and missals in their 
ancient form, and this was generally accepted as defini- 
tively the true and canonical version. 

It was reserved for IS" ikon, in the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, to accomplish a fundamental reform. 
This extraordinary man was well fitted for the task. 
His learning was, for the age and the country, varied 
and profound, his genius vast and enterprising, his piety 
and devotion to the Church sincere, his zeal and energy 
unbounded, and his determination inflexible. He pos- 
sessed the entire confidence of his sovereign, and wield- 
ed over the State a power and influence commensurate 
with that he exercised over the Church. At his command 
Greek and Slavonic manuscripts were collected and col- 
lated, monks were summoned from Byzantium and from 
the holy sanctuaries of Palestine, and the work of expurga- 
tion and correction was vigorously pursued. The rites and 
ceremonies were restored in their primitive purity, and 
invested with all the pomp and splendor of the Oriental 
Church. The liturgy and missals, freed from interpola- 
tions and erroneous readings, were approved by a coun- 
cil, and the use of the amended version forcibly imposed 
throughout the empire. These radical measures, received 
with stupefaction and amazement, were at first apparent- 
ly successful, but soon aroused a storm of popular indig- 
nation and revolt ; resistance was organized and encour- 
aged by a large portion of the clergy, especially by those 
of the lower ranks, who came in more immediate contact 
with the people; they denounced the alterations as a 



188 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

new-f angled religion, akin to Romanism or Lutheranism, 
and as a deadly attack npon the ancient Orthodox faith. 
The Church appealed to the State to enforce its edicts, 
and persecution increased fanaticism. Ten years later 
Mkon fell from his high estate, and, although the coun- 
cil which condemned him ratified the reforms he had in- 
augurated, his deposition seemed, to the people, a full 
justification for their opposition. The sanction and ap- 
proval of the Eastern patriarchs served only to increase 
and intensify the popular feeling, by arousing the general 
hatred of foreign intervention, and added to the bitter 
contest the element of national jealousy and prejudice. 
What was, at first, merely an outbreak of religious dis- 
content assumed by degrees the aspect of a political rev- 
olution. Dissent rapidly developed into schism ; it be- 
came the Raskol, or the Rupture, and, once firmly estab- 
lished, was a power no longer to be summarily dealt with. 

In all religious history no movement so serious and 
lasting has ever issued from such futile and trivial causes. 
The way of making the sign of the cross, its form, wheth- 
er processions should march towards the East or towards 
the West, an additional letter in the name Jesus, the 
repetition of Halleluia twice or three times, the number 
of loaves upon the Holy Table, constituted the principal 
points of the controversy. Servile respect for the letter 
of the law, for the form only, was the very essence of its 
origin ; but it must be remembered that, for the old Mus- 
covite, Orthodoxy, Christianity, Religion itself was but 
ceremony and symbol, as embodiments of the fundamen- 
tal dogmas of the faith. 

The Dissenters, hitherto known as the Staroobriadtsi, 1 
or Old Ritualists, assumed the name of Staroveri, 2 or Old 

1 From starii, old, and obriad, ceremonial. 

2 From starii, old, and vera, truth. 



UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE OF THE RASKOL. 189 

Believers ; that is, true believers, and, by a singular con- 
tradiction, founded their claim to this designation upon 
the alleged antiquity of their practices, stubbornly ignor- 
ing the fact that the innovations, against which they re- 
belled, in reality restored the ancient worship in its prim- 
itive purity, while they were the innovators. 

The principle underlying the Easkol is essentially re- 
alistic and materialistic, pushed to its extreme limits. 
Notwithstanding the extravagance of its deductions and 
the moral barrenness of its results, it is, in the singleness 
of purpose and fanatical sincerity of its adherents, enti- 
tled to respect, if not to sympathy. Reverence for the 
letter of the law is, for the Old Believer, a consequence of 
his regard for its spirit ; in his mind the two are insepa- 
rably united; the form and the essence are one; both 
necessary elements of faith, both equally of divine ori- 
gin, essential parts of a complete and perfect whole, re- 
vealed by God to man, as the only way of salvation ; 
nothing in it is trivial, nothing superfluous ; all is pro- 
found, mysterious, holy ; one jot or one tittle may not 
pass from the law, and the words of St. John, set as a 
seal to close the Apocalypse, are, for him, a real and aw- 
ful curse. 

In this scrupulous regard for form the Easkol is in di- 
rect opposition to Protestantism, impatient of all fetters 
and restraint ; it is allied to it in the free interpretation 
it allows to the text of the Word and in the many expla- 
nations it permits of the symbols of the faith. It seeks 
constantly a hidden, allegorical signification, not only in 
the expressions used, but also in the events narrated by 
the sacred writers ; for instance, the story of Lazarus 
has been explained as a parable, and not a miracle per- 
formed by the Saviour; Lazarus was the human soul, 
his death the state of sin ; Martha and Mary were, one 



190 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the body, the other the soul ; the grave was the cares of 
life, the resurrection of Lazarus the conversion of the 
soul. Christ's entrance into Jerusalem was not an inci- 
dent in his career, but was a t} r pical description of the en- 
trance of the Holy Spirit into the heart of man. From this 
freedom of interpretation, indulged m by a superstitious, 
ignorant, and imaginative people, has arisen division into 
innumerable sects, with almost infinite variations of be- 
lief, as extraordinary and fantastic as they are numerous. 

The strength and sacredness of family ties, together 
with the respect for ancient usages, at all times charac- 
teristic of the Muscovite race, have intensified their at- 
tachment to parental teachings and to doctrines inherit- 
ed from their ancestors. " This was the religion of our 
fathers," they replied to remonstrances and menaces; 
" punish us, exile us, if you will, but leave us free to wor- 
ship as our fathers did." 

Mkon's changes attacked directly this reverential re- 
gard for what they deemed the past ; the child remem- 
bered its mother's teachings, and refused to surrender 
the belief she relied upon ; the peasant knew nothing of 
alterations or corruptions introduced centuries ago. An- 
cient usages, for him, were the usages of his forefathers, 
and the traditions of the village elders ; he had heard 
vaguely of Romanism as an impious heresy, of his breth- 
ren in Poland seduced and forced by Catholic influence 
to a mongrel belief, hateful in his eyes, and he clung the 
closer to his father's creed. Both people and clergy were 
suspicious of every importation from abroad, whether it 
came from Western Europe, from the shores of the Bos- 
phorus, or even from ancient Kiev, where priests studied 
" that thrice-accursed language, Latin ;" they held it a 
mortal sin to call God " Deus," or the Father " Pa- 
ter ;" his only name was their own Slavonic " Bogh." A 



POLITICAL ASPECT OF THE RASKOL. 191 

letter written by a Paskolnik, during the reign of Cath- 
erine II., relates " that in those days a violent persecu- 
tion arose against us, pious Christians, dwelling peace- 
ably among Little Russian perverts who eat pigeons and 
hares, and soil their mouths with the thrice-accursed 
plants coffee and tobacco ; they have dragged some of us 
into their errors, but these were among us, though not 
of us; they were led by Satan himself — Satan, son of 
Beelzebub, offspring of the Serpent ; they do not even 
think it a sin to call God Deus, and his Father, who got 
him, Pater." 1 The Raskolniks, who called themselves 
" spiritual," or " true " Christians, deemed themselves to 
be the only Orthodox believers, the elect, chosen vessels 
to preserve the purity of the faith ; and classed all for- 
eigners as heretics sure of damnation. The Easkol was 
the expression of national and popular prejudices, as well 
as that of earnest religious enthusiasm. 

Not long after Nikon, Peter the Great appeared, the 
chief cause of the schism, the head and front of the of- 
fending. 

It is difficult, at the present day, to realize the impres- 
sion this monarch made upon his subjects. It was more 
than wonder and amazement ; they were scandalized by 
his acts. lie trampled under foot their most cherished 
customs and traditions ; openly and brutally assailed an- 
cient and venerable institutions, held in tenderest re- 
spect ; meddled with private affairs, and invaded the 
sanctity of domestic life ; enforced regulations which 
shocked their national prejudices and religious belief; 
revolutionized the form of government; degraded the 
dignity of his kingly office, and dared even raise a sacri- 
legious hand upon the holy Church. 

1 "Le Raskol," p. 50. 



192 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

In the new Bussia which he created the bewildered 
Muscovite could no longer recognize his native land; 
strange names were dinned in his ears, foreign habits 
and habiliments offended his gaze ; the calendar and the 
alphabet were altered, saints' days and holy days were 
shifted ; men's chins were shaven, women appeared un- 
veiled in the streets ; Moscow became Babylon ; old Rus- 
sia was shaken as by an earthquake, and chaos seemed 
come again. The memory of Nikon's innovations was 
revived ; Peter walked in his footsteps, and was, by 
popular indignation, accused of being his adulterous off- 
spring. 

The civil revolution inaugurated by the tsar gave 
fresh vigor to the discontent aroused by the old patri- 
arch's attempt to reform the Church ; Old Russians, op- 
posed to civic and social changes, sympathized with Old 
Ritualists, intolerant of clerical innovation. National 
prejudices were stimulated by religious fanaticism, and 
religious hostility was excited by respect for ancient cus- 
toms and institutions. 

The complicated machinery of a modern form of gov- 
ernment was irksome to a primitive people, strongly at- 
tached to simple and long-inherited usages ; it was vex- 
atious and repugnant to their habits. They rebelled 
against heavy imposts, made necessary by the new re- 
quirements of the State ; against novel duties and obliga- 
tions imposed upon them ; against recruitment and en- 
forced military service. They were impatient of restric- 
tions upon personal freedom, of passports, and rules for 
dress ; they were conscientiously opposed to regulations 
offending their religious scruples, to the census, to the 
registration of births and deaths, to the capitation tax, 
or tax " on souls " (" podoucheno'i oklad ") ; " making them 
pay," as they said, " for their immortal souls, which God 






REFORMS OF NIKON AND PETEB THE GREAT. 193 

had given ;" and they invoked the punishment of David 
for numbering the people of Israel. 

The inflexible determination of the tsar was met with 
equally persistent opposition from these enthusiasts. 
They were astounded by his conduct, and, in their amaze- 
ment, began to question his identity and to deny his au- 
thority. Fabulous stories were secretly circulated, some 
to the effect that he was the son of Nikon ; others that 
the true " white tsar," Peter, had perished at sea ; and 
that a Jew of the accursed race, a son of Satan, had 
usurped the throne, slain the imperial family, and mar- 
ried a German adventuress, who brought with her into 
Russia myriads of her countrymen. He was the Anti- 
christ, whose coming had been foretold by the prophets, 
and his reign was the reign of Satan. 

In the presumptuous efforts of Nikon Old Believers 
had seen portents of impending evil ; and in the impious 
acts of Peter, levelling the venerable institutions of the 
past, insulting religion and morality, they realized the 
fulfilment of the prophetic vision of St. John ; the last 
days had come, and the end of the world was at hand. 
The tsar's abolition of the patriarchate, the restrictions 
he imposed upon the Church, his attacks upon the rights 
and privileges of the clergy, the war he waged upon 
ancient customs, his persecution of true Orthodoxy, his 
fondness for the hated heretical foreigner, his wonder- 
ful triumphs after repeated and crushing defeats, the 
irregularities and wild excesses of his private life, even 
his gigantic stature, his strength, and his striking per- 
sonal appearance, designated him as the Beast of the 
Apocalypse. Fanatical ingenuity found ample confirma- 
tion in the prophecies for this popular belief. He aban- 
doned the national and sacred title of tsar for the infidel 
appellation of imperator, and as therein, by the suppres- 
13 



194: THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

sion of the second letter, they deciphered the apocalyptic 
number 666, they said he concealed his accursed name 
under the letter M. 1 The council at Moscow, which, while 
condemning Nikon, had anathematized the Easkol, was 
convoked in 1666 ; from this number, by dropping the 
thousand, in accordance with the old Russian custom of 
reckoning dates, they had 666 ; and as this was the num- 
ber of the " beast," they read the date of the council as 
marking the commencement of Satan's reign. They 
found in the word Russia (Russa or Roussa) an anagram 
of Assur, or Assour of the Bible, and averred that the 
curses of the prophets against the Assyrian cities of 
Nineveh and Babylon were aimed at their own unhappy 
land. With their country thus given over to the powers 
of hell, and the devil sitting on the throne, surrounded 
by his imps, in the persons of the tsar's ministers and 
favorites, the Raskolniks felt it to be a religious duty to 
reject every innovation introduced, and every change 
made, under this Satanic rule, suffering with patient en- 
durance, even unto death, rather than yield compliance 
to unrighteous behests. They carried their resistance 
into all the detail of daily life ; as matters of conscience, 
they eschewed the use of tobacco, for " the things which 
come out of him, those are they that defile the man " 
(Mark vii. 15) ; of sugar, as it is refined with blood, and, 
by the Scriptures, man may not eat of the blood of 
beasts ; of tea and coffee, as of foreign production ; of 
the potato, as being the fruit with which the serpent 
tempted Eve. They objected to the paving of the 
streets, as a foreign invention. They submitted to 
double taxation, deprivation of civil rights, and to exile 

1 The Slav letters of the alphabet were, like the Greek, used for fig- 
ures; and imperator, without the m, figured thus: i=10, p=80, e=5, 
r=100, a=l, t=300, o=70, r=100 ; total, C66. 



THE RASKOL SOCIALLY AND POLITICALLY. 105 

even, rather than change their dress or crop their hair. 
They gloried in the red badge they were compelled to 

wear, as it pointed them out to the sympathy and com- 
miseration of the people as the suffering, yet uncomplain- 
ing, defenders of national t raditions and the ancient faith. 
Long hair and beards are still, as then, their distinguish- 
ing feature; and popular obstinacy, in this particular, 
proved stronger than the will of the autocrat. The more 
exalted and fanatic among them, called Stranniki, 1 or Fu- 
gitives, threw oil all allegiance, and arrayed themselves 
in open opposition to the government, proclaiming re- 
sistance to constituted authority as their profession of 
faith. 

Apart from the religious character of the Easkol, it 
thus assumed another aspect, social and political, ecpally 
important as a popular protestation against new or for- 
eign habits, customs, and laws. In its origin and incep- 
tion it was but a blind attachment to errors born of ig- 
norance, prejudice, and superstition, essentially a relig- 
ious movement, and upon this, its first principle, was en- 
grafted, during Peter's reign, that of hostility to the 
existing government, and to constituted authority. The 
reforms inaugurated by him were generally accepted by 
the nobles and by the upper classes, but were repudiated 
by the people ; the lines of demarcation between the two 
sections of society were more strongly drawn, and the 
Easkol became concentrated, almost entirely, in the lower 
ranks, which remained persistently faithful to the an- 
cient order of things. It was conservative and reaction- 
ary, hostile as well to civil as to religious reform, a pow- 
ful and dangerous element, frequently availed of by un- 
scrupulous and designing men for the furtherance of 

1 From strannik, a traveller, or wanderer. 



196 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

their ambitious ends. The Old Believers were, and are 
still, upholders of ancient usages, as well as of ancient 
creeds ; they are old Eussians, Slavophiles, in the fullest 
sense, Asiatic, Oriental in their opposition to change or 
progress ; they still look back to the days of their fa- 
thers as the golden age, and see no hope nor encourage- 
ment in what the future may have to offer. This spirit, 
which has always been a characteristic of the Eussian 
people generally, has, nurtured and fostered by religious 
enthusiasm, been one of the strongest influences against 
which modern civilization, aided by government support, 
has had to contend. It explains in some degree the 
crude revolutionary movements which have at times 
temporarily disturbed the empire. Ignorant and fa- 
natical opposition to authority has frequently led to im- 
patience of all control, political or moral, and given rise 
to the wildest theories of socialism and communism. 

There is a liberal and democratic tendency in the 
Easkol, notwithstanding its stationary and reactionary 
character. It sprang into existence not long after the 
establishment of serfdom ; its lowly origin won for it 
early unconscious sympathy among an enslaved popula- 
tion, to whom it appealed the more strongly from its re- 
jection by their masters. The people, in their material 
condition, were but little better than the beasts of the 
field, and the aspirations natural to the heart of man 
found solace in the prospect of spiritual independence. 
Their souls, if not their bodies, were their own ; and, in 
the sphere of religious belief, they unwittingly found the 
opportunity for self-assertion which raised them in their 
own estimation, and enabled them, in some degree, to 
realize the dignity of their manhood. Doctrines, to 
which they were already inclined, met with more hearty 
response from being at variance with those of their supe- 



INCOHERENT RESULTS OF THE RASKOL. 197 

riors ; sympathy for their brethren, oppressed on relig- 
ious grounds, inspired sympathy for all victims of au- 
thority. The liaskol opened its ranks, and afforded pro- 
tection to the fugitive from justice, as well as to the suf- 
ferer from religious persecution. Its many sects, hostile 
and warring each with the other, were united in opposi- 
tion, not only to the established Church, but also to the 
newly constituted order of things throughout ; and the 
spirit of resistance to clerical intolerance was in close 
accord with resistance to civil authority, each, by mutual 
reaction, supporting and sustaining the other. 

In the vast field of theological discussion there is but 
slight hinderance to the wildest efforts of the imagina- 
tion ; no material facts, no perfectly ascertained nor mi- 
nutely defined beliefs arrest the speculative flights of 
thought, or direct them to positive and necessary conclu- 
sions. They may wander on indefinitely, developing most 
contradictory, yet logical, consequences ; and the excitable, 
imaginative disposition of the Russian people, their de- 
vout and superstitious temperament, render them espe- 
cially prone to indulge in ratiocinations of this nature ; 
while the methodical, argumentative bent of their mind 
leads them on, from deduction to deduction, to the utmost 
extremes, which, however irrational, or even absurd, they 
are boldly prepared to accept. The fundamental dogmas 
of Orthodoxy, moreover, while being immutable, are sim- 
ple and elementary, conveyed in language often vague and 
mysterious, capable of divers interpretations ; consequent- 
ly an inclination to refine and speculate is developed as 
a means of satisfying a spiritual craving. From this 
proclivity, freely exercised by an illiterate but intelligent 
people, untrammelled by any restraint, without guidance 
from any recognized authority, has arisen the multiplic- 
ity of sects in the Easkol, the widely diverging doctrines, 



198 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the extraordinary, often contradictory, but apparently 
logical results arrived at from a common starting-point. 
From its inception the Kaskol seemed doomed to early 
extinction. The Old Believers originally rebelled in sup- 
port of ancient rites and ceremonies, and from the first 
they were confronted by an obstacle fitted to deter men 
of less enthusiasm or of weaker faith. The only bishop 
who shared their views, when they rejected Nikon's re- 
forms, was Paul of Kolomna ; he was exiled, and died 
without having consecrated any successor in his episco- 
pal office. The Kaskol, thus left without a head, with- 
out a bishop to renew and perpetuate its priesthood, with- 
out officers to administer the rites which it had been cre- 
ated to defend, seemed paralyzed from its birth. In the 
opinion of its adherents the Kaskol was not merely a doc- 
trinal system that could be propagated by ordinary teach- 
ers, it was the true original Church of divine institution, 
now purified of error, establishing the connection between 
man and God by the intermediary of a divinely appointed 
priesthood, capable of transmitting, in regular apostolic 
succession, the powers received from its Great High Priest. 
By the bereavement it suffered at the death of its only 
bishop, all connection with Christ was severed ; its mis- 
sion was frustrated before it had commenced ; the rea- 
son for its existence and. the possibility of its continu- 
ance were destroyed by the loss of the sacred authority, 
without which, as they themselves at first believed, there 
could be neither Church nor clergy. The difficulty 
seemed insurmountable, but they had gone too far to 
recede, and religious enthusiasm stimulated their inge- 
nuity. Two paths only were open; the more exalted 
and extreme of their number chose the one, the more 
conservative followed the other, and schism arose w ithin 
the schism almost at its inception. 



DIVISION OF THE RASKOL. 199 

The Paskol was divided into two sects, which have 
ever remained, each hostile to the other. The adherents 
of one retained the belief that Christianity, or a Church, 
could not exist without a priesthood of regular apostolic 
descent; they held that the Church of Russia had not 
necessarily, by adopting Nikon's heresy, lost its sacred 
character, that ordination of priests by its bishops was 
still valid, and, consequently, that to have a clergy in 
regular standing they had but to convert and draw to 
their ranks ministers of the national establishment. 
These sectarians took the name of " Popovtsi," ' or 
Priest-possessing. 

The adherents of the other declared that, by anathe- 
matizing true believers, by rejecting ancient traditions, 
books, and ritual, the National Church had become heret- 
ical, and lost all claim to divine power or authority ; it 
was accursed, and its ministers were children of the Evil 
One ; any communication with them was a sin, and con- 
secration or ordination by them was pollution. The 
Eastern patriarchs shared in the condemnation, and no 
relief could come from them. Orthodoxy was extinct, 
apostolic succession and priesthood had perished with it. 
These fanatics were designated as " Bezpopovtsi," 2 or 
those without priests. 

The existence of a sacerdotal class, although it was 
small in number, and composed chiefly of ignorant, venal, 
or unfrocked popes, prevented the complete separation 
of the Popovtsi from the established Church, and the 
utter rejection by them of all Orthodox doctrines. They 
recognize, and still accept, the sacraments, and have, as 
will be explained, managed to revive the episcopate and 
to establish a regular hierarchy of their own. 

1 From pope, a priest of the Russian Church. 
8 From bez, without, and pope, a priest. 



200 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

The Bezpopovtsi, on the contrary, with no stable foun- 
dation on which to stay their belief, no guiding author- 
ity to direct their steps, have wandered from Christian 
truth and ordinary morality, ramifying in every conceiv- 
able direction, following out, with inexorable logic, to 
their most extravagant and absurd conclusions the vaga- 
ries and eccentricities of individual opinion. 

Eenouncing the priesthood, they have abandoned all 
recognized forms of Orthodox or Christian worship ; of 
the seven channels of divine grace, they have rejected 
all save baptism, which may be administered by lay 
brethren ; the others are closed forever. Most extraor- 
dinary and conflicting ideas prevail among them, and 
each one is free to adopt and to follow such as may seem 
good in his own eyes. The more timid and superstitious 
among them, reluctant to accept as final their utter de- 
privation of all Christian ordinances, and their complete 
severance from all Church organization, have ransacked 
their imaginations to devise substitutes for the one and 
the other wherewith to appease their spiritual cravings. 
"Without priests to hear confession and grant absolution, 
some confess to elders, some to sisters, as partaking by 
their sex of the blessing pronounced on Mary, " blessed 
among women," whom "all generations shall call 
blessed," and are fain to be content with promises of 
pardon. "Without communion, these famished souls, 
hungering for holy food, resort to divers ceremonies 
which are, according to their moods and disposition, either 
fanciful and touching, or cruel and revolting : dried fruits, 
distributed by young girls, or flesh cut from a virgin's 
breast, are partaken of for spiritual refreshment. Amid 
their extravagances the ludicrous blends with the lugu- 
brious. During the service of Holy Thursday certain of 
them, known as " gapers " or " yawners," sit for hours 



THE BEZPOPOVTSI.-EXTKAVAGANCES.-MAREIAGE. 201 

with their mouths wide open, waiting for ministering 
angels to quench their spiritual thirst from invisible 
chalices. While in constant and patient expectation of 
a miracle that shall again unite the body of the faithful 
upon earth with their Father in heaven, the great num- 
ber of these enthusiasts rub tranquilly along through 
life, restrained by the engrossing difficulties of an ardu- 
ous existence and the natural kindliness of the Russian 
character, from many of the aberrations that should 
logically follow upon their theories ; but the more ex- 
alted and fanatic recoil from no consequences, however 
painful. Their dead are buried without prayer, as they 
have lived, in sickness and in trouble, without religious 
consolation; marriage is ignored, family ties and obli- 
gations are disregarded, and all the bonds and recipro- 
cal duties upon which society is based are repudiated. 
This question of marriage is the chief stumbling-block 
in their path, the principal and fruitful cause of dis- 
sension and division among them. The moderate and 
more practical of their number consider conjugal re- 
lations as merely a personal and conventional asso- 
ciation, convenient, entitled to respect even, but with 
nothing sacred or inviolable in its character. The more 
rigid affirm celibac} 7 to be obligatory, and marriage to 
be a state of continual sin. Between these two extremes 
there is room for the wildest and most repulsive theories. 
Carnal sensuality is allied in monstrous union with relig- 
ious mysticism. Free love, independence of the sexes, 
possession of women in common, have been preached and 
practised. Debauchery, as an incidental weakness of 
human nature, has been advocated as the lesser evil ; 
libertinism as preferable to concubinage, and the latter 
as better than marriage. One of their most austere 
teachers cynically declares that "it is wiser to live with 



202 TH E RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

beasts than to be joined to a wife ; to frequent many 
women in secret, rather than live with one openly." ' 

Such are some of the results at which the most scru- 
pulous defenders of ancient rites have arrived from their 
modest starting-point. In order to preserve intact a few 
venerable ceremonies, they entered upon their blind and 
perilous undertaking, and have been led, step by step, 
to abandon, not merely the doctrines of the Orthodox 
Church, but all principles of religion and morality. It 
was not without evident trepidation that even the most 
fanatic were brought to accept conclusions so abhorrent, 
however logical in appearance. They have felt the ne- 
cessity of justifying their course, and as their apology 
have argued that Christ had abandoned His Church and 
His people ; that the triumph of sin and iniquity was the 
fulfilment of the prophecies ; that the evil days had come 
when the saints should be troubled and given over to 
the adversary ; that the Church, deprived of its priest- 
hood, was the desolate sanctuary described by Daniel ; 
that Antichrist had come, and the end of all things was 
drawing nigh. "Why, then," said they, u should the 
faithful be disquieted within themselves, or sorrow over 
a ruined Church; why mourn the social wreck, or be 
concerned for the mortal destinies of the race, when the 
last trump is about to sound ?" 

The reign of Antichrist and the coming of the judg- 
ment-day is the ever-recurring cry of the Raskolniks gen- 
erally, but especially of the Eezpopovtsi. Like all relig- 
ious fanatics, they differ widely among themselves as to 
the explication and as to the application of their belief 
in these events. Many of them hold that this period of 
tribulation may endure for centuries ; that it is a third 

1 Kavyline, quoted by K Popof , v. Revue des Deux Mbndes, Nov. l er , 
1874; article by A. Leroy-Beaulieu. 



THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST.— FANATICISM. 203 

Dispensation, similar to the old and the new, which both 
have passed a\v;iv. The more moderate, together with 
fche Popovtsi, understand them in a spiritual sense; they 
look more kindly on the civil government and on the 
established Church, as having been unwittingly made 
ministers of the powers of darkness, and as being capable 
of regeneration. The more rabid and extreme of the Bez- 
popovtsi comprehend them literally. Peter was Antichrist 
in person, who, in Peter's successors, still sits upon the 
throne, and the Holy Synod is the ministerial council of 
His Satanic Majesty. Herein lies a wide difference be- 
tween the extreme branches of the Kaskol, less important 
in its religious aspect, but more so in its political bearing 
and consequences. With those who regard the Church 
and the State as merely wandering from the faith, blind, it 
may be, to the truth, but not irredeemably perverse, some 
degree of harmony and some hope of eventual reconcili- 
ation are possible ; but with the others, for whom all 
existing institutions, civil and religious, are the incarna- 
tion of evil, the handiwork of the devil, no understand- 
ing, truce, or peace can be expected. 

The general belief in the actual advent of Antichrist 
has given rise, among the more extreme, who are at 
the same time the more ignorant and credulous, to the 
wildest vagaries, subversive of all law, government, and 
society. 

Inasmuch as the tsar was the personification of evil, 
and his counsellors were imps of Satan, obedience to his 
decrees was sinful and infamous, and all communication 
with him or them was pollution. To escape from con- 
tamination they fled to desert places and shut themselves 
up in hidden retreats. Many deemed death preferable 
to life amid error and iniquity, and shortened their pro- 
bation in an accursed world by murder and suicide. Cer- 



204 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

tain fanatics, called " Dieto-oubiisti," or Child-killers, felt 
it a religions duty to slay new-born infants, in order that 
their souls, innocent of sin, might be sure of heaven 
without risk of damnation ; some known as Stranglers, 
or Fellers (Doushilstchiki, or Tioukalstchiki), conceived 
that a violent death was the true way of salvation, plead- 
ing in grim earnestness that "the kingdom of heaven 
suffereth violence; the violent take it by force" (Mat- 
thew xi., 12), and piously despatched their relatives and 
friends by strangulation or blows, in case of mortal ill- 
ness ; others, who were very numerous in the early days 
of the Easkol, the Philipovtsi, disciples of one Philip, 
who were also called Burners (Sojigateli), preached re- 
demption by suicide and purification by fire. In the 
wilds of Siberia and in the Ural Mountains hundreds, 
whole families at a time, threw themselves into the 
flames of their burning houses, kindled by their own 
hands, or offered themselves up on funeral pyres, with 
prayers and songs, as a holocaust unto the Lord. 

Belief in Antichrist and in the triumph of iniquity 
induced expectation of the millennium and of the second 
coming of Christ to reign with the faithful for a thou- 
sand years. Tenement exhortations of crazed enthusi- 
asts, interpreting literally the prophecies of the Apoca- 
lypse, excited the imaginations of the ignorant and 
superstitious with wild dreams of material happiness 
soon to be enjoyed by the elect. Even in recent days, 
in spite of strict laws and prohibitive enactments, im- 
postors have played upon the credulity of the simple and 
devout population. Accompanied by women, whom they 
presented for adoration as the Mother of God, or as the 
Mystic Spouse of the Church, they have asserted them- 
selves to be the promised Messiah, or the " voice of one 
crying in the wilderness," foretelling the coming of the 



THE MILLENNIUM.— WILD ECCENTRICITIES. 205 

Lord, arid have sent forth their followers as "seekers 
after Christ " (" iskateli Christa"), to search through the 
world for the Redeemer. No prediction was too im- 
probable, no ext ravagance too wild, for credence. Simple 
peasants, princes of national and foreign lineage, mighty 
warriors, have been announced as the long-expected 
Saviour. Napoleon, destroyer of kings, avenger of op- 
pressed nationalities, was hailed as the victorious con- 
queror who was to put all things under his feet. There 
are still worshippers in secret at his shrine — his death is 
denied ; he escaped from captivity and found refuge in 
the depths of Siberia, on the shores of Lake Baikal, from 
whence he shall come, in the fulness of time, to trample 
upon Satan and establish the kingdom of peace and 
righteousness. The ready acceptance of doctrines so 
strange and fanciful must be ascribed in great measure 
to the existence among the people of vague aspirations, 
similar to those among the ancient Jews, to ardent desire 
for freedom and for relief from slavery, to a universal 
longing for emancipation from serfdom and its burdens, 
to the hope and expectation of a future repartition of the 
soil. Promises of coming liberty and assurances of par- 
ticipation in the wealth of their masters, based on Bibli- 
cal prophecies, were welcome to an oppressed and suffer- 
ing population. 

The abolition of serfdom was enthusiastically hailed as 
the commencement of the final revolution, the beginning 
of the end so eagerly desired and so long waited for. It 
deprived, for a while, the preachers of revolt and resist- 
ance of their most formidable arguments, and checked 
the growth of the extreme and fanatical sects of the 
Raskol. As, however, this benevolent measure failed to 
immediately realize their extravagant anticipations, in 
their ignorance and impatience, incapable of compre- 



206 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

tending its operation or of appreciating the beneficent 
results destined to flow from it, they have made the tardy 
realization of its blessings a fresh departure for denunci- 
ation of the authorities, who, as they aver, ever seek to 
defraud the people of their rights. The influence of 
these apostles of disorder and evil is still sorely felt, but 
it has diminished, and must eventually yield to the era 
of progress and enlightenment inaugurated by Alexan- 
der the Emancipator. 

Eussia is not alone subject to the reproach of extraor- 
dinary and extravagant ideas, nor may their existence 
be solely attributed to the ignorance and degradation of 
her people ; they have had their counterpart in England 
and in America, under very different conditions. The 
Ironsides of Cromwell, the Puritans of New England, 
bear strong resemblance to the Old Believers, and for 
originality, eccentricity, and multiplicity of religious 
creeds, the Anglo-Saxon is in no whit inferior to the 
Muscovite of "White Eussia. The great republic of the 
New World and the vast empire of the North complacent- 
ly find many points of contact, and this one is, perhaps, 
of all, the most remarkable. Prophets and prophetesses 
of divers revelations have rallied around them, in Amer- 
ica, disciples by thousands ; no doctrine has been too ab- 
surd, no creed too subversive of order or of morality, to 
find acceptance and gather adherents there among Mor- 
mons, Millerites, advocates of free love, and multitudi- 
nous sects of similar description. 

This singular analogy between two people of such dif- 
ferent antecedents and character, surrounded by influ- 
ences so opposite and antagonistic, is susceptible, in some 
degree at least, of explanation. In one case there has 
been extraordinary exuberance of ideas, excessive indi- 
viduality of opinion, a vigorous spirit of initiative and 



RELIGIOUS SECTS IN AMERICA AND RUSSIA. 207 

innovation, independence of thought, and impatience of 
authority ; these characteristics, combined with strong 
devotional tendencies inherited from a Puritan ancestry, 
have overflowed the natural channels of politics and in- 
dustry into those of religious speculation and creeds. In 
the other, the domain of religious thought was the only 
one open to the aspirations and struggling efforts of the 
popular mind, the only sphere in which the intelligence 
of the people could move freely and without repression, 
or find opportunity for its expression and development. 
Mournful as have been the results attained in Eussia, 
they bear, in their vigor, fecundity, and originality, strong 
proof of intellectual energy and vitality in the Eussian 
people, of singleness of purpose, and of deep sense of re- 
ligious obligation ; great qualities in themselves, which 
are, if rightly directed, essential elements in the growth 
of a great nation. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Raskol Socially and Politically.— Praobrajenski and Rogojski.— 
Organization of Popovtsism and Bezpopovtsism. — Attempts at Rec- 
onciliation -with the Church. — The Edinovertsi. — Modification of 
Raskol ; its Extreme Sects. 

The Raskol has, during its existence of more than two 
centuries, exerted a wide, varied, and deeply-felt influ- 
ence upon the Russian nation, and has, in its turn, under- 
gone great changes and modifications from the pressure 
of surrounding circumstances. 

Having considered it in its spiritual and religious bear- 
ing upon the mental and moral condition of the people, 
and upon the progress of civilization in Russia, and hav- 
ing traced the results flowing from it in this direction, it 
is necessary, for a full comprehension of the influence it 
has had, and still exercises, to view it in its social and po- 
litical aspect ; this is not less important, and it presents 
for investigation phenomena of an equally complex and 
peculiar nature ; it will also be interesting to examine 
the counter effect produced upon it in the gradual devel- 
opment of the nation during a long series of years, and 
its present position, as an essential element of the Rus- 
sian social fabric. 

Any attempt to estimate the power and the influence 
of the Raskol, by ascertaining the extent of its sway and 
the number of its adherents, can give but vague and indef- 
inite results, from the want of sufficient data whereupon 
to base an opinion. Official reports profess to exhibit 
the statistics of all the sects within the empire ; the Ras- 



RASKOLNIKS.— THEIR NUMBERS. 209 

kolniks are included, and, by the census of 1871, they 
number about eleven hundred thousand. This figure is, 
by all competent authority, rejected as much below the 
actual truth, and the estimates made by those most ca- 
pable of judging vary from two to fifteen millions. The 
Raskolniks do not themselves pretend to know with any 
degree of accuracy, and only affirm that " they are very 
numerous." 

The government lists embrace only those who have, 
generation after generation, refused to be enrolled upon 
the parish registers, and who openly profess to be schis- 
matics. Besides these there are the many who either tim- 
idly shun the avowal of their affiliation or who belong 
secretly to prohibited sects, and they comprise a very 
numerous class. A Russian writer, about twelve years 
ago, basing his calculation upon a careful examination of 
the reports of the Holy Synod regarding the religious 
condition of the people, arrived at a total of from nine 
to ten millions. Competent specialists of recent date 1 
reckon them at fifteen millions. These latter figures may 
be excessive, but an estimate of ten or eleven millions is 
probably not an exaggerated one to-day (1S86), and it 
agrees substantially with such information as can be de- 
rived from the Raskolniks themselves. It is certain that 
their number is rapidly increasing. Figures, however, 
give but a partial and inadequate idea of the extent and 
influence of the movement. Apart from those who may 
be said to be enrolled in its ranks, whether as public 
professors or as secret adherents, there is a very much 
larger number who, without actively joining, are in sym- 
pathy, more or less earnest, with it. As a general rule, 

1 Schedo-Ferroti, "La tolerance et le Scbisme religieux en Russie," 
p. 153, cited by Leroy-Beaulieu, in an article of La Revue des Deux 
Mondes, Mai l er , 1875. 

u 



210 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the peasant or laborer who remains true to the Ortho- 
dox Church does not look down upon the Easkolniks as 
heretics to be hated or despised. On the contrary, he 
feels, rather, respect for them as holy men, more pious 
and devout than himself, ready, like the early Christians, 
to brave obloquy and reproach for the ancient faith. 
Until recent ameliorations in the morals and condition 
of the official clergy removed from it the well-merited 
charge of greed, ignorance, and indolence, it compared 
unfavorably with the often disinterested, always active 
and energetic, propagators of Dissent ; the Church suf- 
fered in popular estimation from the comparison, even 
among its own children, while the Easkol gained. This 
feeling of sympathy for it is general; it is evinced in 
constant willingness to befriend, or screen, its adherents ; 
it is deep-rooted and persistent. By many, even of the 
more liberal members of the Orthodox communion, it is 
believed and feared that a very large portion of the 
nation would lapse into Dissent if all restraint were re- 
moved, and grave apprehensions of the consequences to 
the Church of any radical measures of relief are a seri- 
ous obstacle to the recognition of perfect freedom of 
conscience. 

The strength of the schism is not to be measured by 
the number of its adherents or by the extent of popular 
sympathy with it ; there is an additional element to be 
considered, which is the character of that portion of the 
nation in which it arose, and where it still exists in its 
fullest development. 

Eidiculed and despised by the educated and the noble, 
it flourished especially among the people, and was re- 
cruited almost wholly among the laboring classes, peas- 
ants and mechanics, shop-keepers and petty merchants. 
In its origin a religious movement, it became a social 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE RASKOL SOCIALLY. 211 

and political one when the violent reforms of Peter the 
Great divided the nation, and created two hostile camps, 
with no feeling of reciprocal obligations or any common 
bond of union. Partisans of the ancient faith were up- 
holders of ancient customs, and rallied to their side the 
opponents of social innovations and of civil changes. 
Religious enthusiasts sympathized Avith Old Muscovites, 
and the national party with Old Believers. This union 
was, however, a union among the lower classes ; the no- 
ble, the wealthy, the ambitious, with few exceptions, fol- 
lowed the emperor's lead, and looked, with all the haugh- 
ty superciliousness of that age, upon the people and upon 
popular opinion. The contempt of the great world was 
an effectual protection to the Raskol, and exercised its 
adherents in liabits of meekness and patience. When, as 
it frequently happened, attention was drawn to them, 
and persecution followed, their common sufferings ce- 
mented their union and strengthened their endurance ; 
but their lowly estate was their best safeguard in the 
early days ; the movement prospered in obscurity, and 
attained formidable proportions before it was deemed 
of consequence or inspired apprehension. Although, at 
times, assailed at the instance of the Church, or, igno- 
rantly serving as a tool in the hands of ambitious and un- 
successful schemers, it shared their fate and punishment, 
the crisis past, it fell back again into the shadow of its 
insignificance, and, with occasional vicissitudes, was, for 
a century and a half, alike ignored and neglected. Bur- 
rowing in the lower strata of social life, protected by its 
seclusion, it steadily increased and ramified. Strong de- 
votional feeling and earnest convictions developed the 
moral sense among its adherents to a high degree. Ev- 
ery member of a community, the character of which may 
be affected by the behavior of the persons who compose it, 



212 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

is interested to watch carefully over his own demeanor and 
over that of his brethren, and the mutual support which 
results therefrom contributed, in the case of the Ras- 
kolniks, to raise the standard of morality among them. 
Their religious belief and practices encouraged sobriety 
and frugality ; habit of free inquiry, and attempt at inde- 
pendence of thought upon spiritual matters, were followed 
by general increase of intelligence, and, under these in- 
fluences, the Raskolniks, gradually and justly, won the 
reputation of being the most honest, the most capable, 
and the most reliable portion of the population. They 
were also banded together by a species of free-masonry, 
a common feeling of necessary co-operation and resistance 
to their powerful adversaries, while constant fear of per- 
secution kept their zeal alive. To the vigor imparted 
by these causes, of a moral nature, are to be added the 
energy and independence resulting from the accumula- 
tion of wealth. Besides the special influence of the teach- 
ings of their creed, which preserved them from the beset- 
ting sins of the Eussian people, self-indulgence and in- 
temperance, they felt the impulse of other agencies, more 
general and more practical in their character. 

Sects and races oppressed by persecution, excluded 
from all part or interest in public or national affairs, 
find vent for their activity, and for the exercise of their 
intelligence, in industrial, financial, or commercial enter- 
prises. This has been the case with the Jews through- 
out the world, with the Armenians in the East and the 
Parsees in India ; and the pursuit of wealth or of mate- 
rial prosperity, as the principal object in life for genera- 
tions, has usually developed an hereditary and peculiar 
aptitude for its acquisition. This result is also true of the 
Raskolniks, although, doubtless, from the circumstances 
of their situation, to a less extent and degree. At the 



MODIFICATIONS IN THE RASKOL. 213 

same time, instinctively, and in view of the universal 
corruption of the administration, they realized that 
wealth was for them a tower of strength against their 
oppressors. At Moscow, many of the finest houses and 
the largest factories belong to Old Believers ; at Perm, 
and in the mining districts of the Ural, they are the 
most substantial capitalists. Their success has been suf- 
ficiently marked to excite the envy of their competitors, 
and to arouse clamorous complaints of a threatened mo- 
nopoly by them of industrial and financial undertakings. 
Their system of mutual assistance and support is another 
secret of their prosperity, and many, indifferent to their 
principles, have joined their ranks to profit by their tac- 
itly recognized co-operative organization. 

Among them, as in every community, there are in- 
triguing and ambitious men, ready to make use of the 
enthusiasm of their more simple brethren, and to ad- 
vance their own ends at the expense of their neighbors ; 
but the Easkolniks cannot, as a body, be accused of being 
actuated entirely by selfish motives ; they are liberal and 
charitable, and many of them dispense their wealth free- 
ly and generously in the endowment of schools and be- 
nevolent institutions ; some, even, in the encouragement 
of art and literature, although, in this respect, their mu- 
nificence is generally, and in conformity with their prej- 
udices, confined to what is national and Eussian. 

With increasing riches, and the accompanying tend- 
ency to luxury of living, there has been considerable re- 
laxation in the severity of their habits and practices, 
more inclination to mingle with the outer world and 
share in its duties and pleasures. Deficient education 
has limited the influence of this temptation, but, in the 
nature of things, it is destined to continue and to extend 
with the progress of enlightenment and of modern civil- 



214 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ization, and will introduce greater changes and modifica- 
tions in the character and principles of the Raskol. 

The healthy development which might have been ex- 
pected from its habit of free inquiry, and from the free- 
dom accorded to individual opinion, has been effectually 
hampered, not only by actual want of education, but also 
by the cramping and restricted nature of the few studies 
permitted. 

The Kaskolniks were, and are, strongly opposed to all 
modern, and especially to all foreign, ideas ; their ears are 
closed to what they deem new-fangled notions, whether 
of domestic or foreign origin, as being tainted with im- 
piety and heresy ; they rest content with their ancient 
Slavonic literature, with the Scriptures, with old devo- 
tional books ; they deliberately shut themselves up in a 
world of their own, fenced about by inveterate preju- 
dices ; they turn round and round within a narrow cir- 
cle, the bounds of which their thoughts, however unre- 
strained therein, may never pass. Here lies the essential 
difference between Russian Easkol and German Prot- 
estantism : the one is sectional, narrow-minded, bigoted, 
jealous, and pharasaical ; the other is universal, whole- 
souled, liberal, generous, and tolerant. 

A geographical and ethnological chart of the Raskol 
would show it to be very unevenly distributed over the 
land. It flourishes best among the most energetic and 
vigorous of the population, in and around the ancient 
cities, among the peasants of the North, the miners of 
the Ural, the pioneers of Siberia, and the Cossacks of the 
Southeast. It is indigenous to Great Russia, and while 
its adherents are found in other provinces throughout 
the whole empire, amid Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and 
Protestant communities, they are generally colonists 
from Great Russia, who live apart from their neighbors, 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE RASKOL. 215 

and, making* few proselytes, are recruited from their 
original homes. 

It is a natural and distinctive product of the old Mus- 
covite race, which, although obstinate, full of prejudices, 
and not inclined to change, is realistic and superstitious, 
better satisfied with the form and outward symbol than 
curious to investigate the essence, or foundation, of its 
belief, and, above all, is intensely national. 

Outward surroundings have had great influence, and 
the predominance of Old Believers in the most distant 
and less populous districts is not accidental, but is a nat- 
ural result of the condition of the people who are thus 
isolated ; they have little intercourse with one another, 
and still less with the outer world ; they remain more 
primitive in their habits, and cling more persistently and 
more reverently to ancient customs. 

The distribution of the two great branches of the Eas- 
kol is in harmony with historic precedent. The lay ele- 
ment of religious communities is ever apt to assert itself 
more boldly in the cold and rude regions of the North 
than in milder and more genial climes, and accordingly 
the Popovtsi, who retain a priesthood, are found chiefly 
towards the South, among the Cossacks of the Don, along 
the banks of the lower Yolga, and of the river Ural ; 
while the Bezpopovtsi, who reject priests and all Church 
government, occupy the shores of the AVhite Sea, the 
neighborhood of the great lakes, the slopes of the Ural 
Mountains, and the solitudes of Siberia ; the convent of 
Yygoretsk, in the wild and desolate region through 
which flows the river Yyg, was their most important 
centre. These northern governments are of prodigious 
extent : Archangel equals France and Italy together ; 
Yologda and Perm are each as large as England. But 
few churches, and these distant many days' journey one 



216 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

from the other, are scattered over these vast territories ; 
the number of priests is small, as it is fixed according to 
the population, which is scanty. The inhabitants do not 
congregate in villages of any size, but are sparsely dis- 
tributed over the whole region ; roads, where any exist, 
are bad, often impassable, and the climate is inclement 
and stormy. Attendance at church is, perforce, limited 
to rare occasions, and pastoral visits are almost unknown. 
From want of intercourse with their parishioners the 
clergy lost authority and influence over them ; the peas- 
ant, isolated in his isba, 1 learned to suffice for his own 
needs, and became independent of priestly aid, even on 
the most solemn occasions. Left to himself, he looked 
to the Scriptures for his guide, and interpreted them ac- 
cording to his feeble and limited light ; he had not the 
resources of the Protestant Puritan in education, nor in 
the accumulated wisdom of the Christian fathers and 
ancient philosophers. "Were he capable of, and did he 
care for investigation, he could, at best, rely only on 
the bewildering scholastic treatises of Byzantine theo- 
logians ; a little learning is dangerous, and his mind 
was starved with indigestible food, filled with crude or 
false ideas, erroneously comprehended, and his imagina- 
tion was fired by mystical sophisms. 

Some Eussian writers have attributed the preponder- 
ance of the Bezpopovtsi, in the north of Russia, to the 
influence of the neighboring Protestant nations of the 
north of Europe, but this hypothesis is unnecessary for 
the explanation of the fact, and it is not in accordance 
with the peculiarly indigenous, national character of the 
movement, whether it be considered at its inception or 
in its most radical development. 

1 Ma is the but, or cabin, of the Russian peasant. 



SPREAD OF THE KASKOL IN AND BEYOND RUSSIA. 217 

Geographically speaking, the ancient metropolis, Mos- 
cow, is the religious centre of the Baskol, from whence 
its missions, or colonies, went forth, either voluntarily or 
driven out by persecution. 

The Old Believers could cross no ocean, like the Eng- 
lish Puritans, to bar pursuit, but they could find refuge 
against oppression in the vast solitudes of their native 
land, or over the borders among the neighboring people. 
As exiles, or as emigrants, they carried their doctrines 
and their nationality beyond the great lakes, over the 
Ural Mountains, and into the Caucasus ; they sought 
safety and peace among the Protestants of the Baltic 
provinces, the Catholics of Poland, and the Mussulmans 
of the East. Yetka, a village of ancient Poland, in the 
province of Mogilev, became, at an early day, the head- 
quarters of the Popovtsi ; there, rapid increase in their 
numbers and in their wealth, activity in the propagation 
of their doctrines, aroused the suspicions and the jeal- 
ousy of the Eussian government. Twice, in 1735, under 
Anna Ivanovna, and in 17G4, under Catherine II., Eus- 
sian troops violated Polish territory to attack and sup- 
press them. On the first occasion Yetka was destroyed, 
and its 40,000 inhabitants, forced back into Eussia, were 
distributed through the southern provinces. They ob- 
tained permission to settle among their co-religionists of 
Eussian Ukraine, near Staradoub, 1 and gathered there, 
within a few years, over fifty thousand adherents around 
the new sanctuary. Yetka also soon regained nearly its 
former importance, and was, a second time, destroyed by 
Catherine II. 

Many colonies of Easkolniks were established just be- 
yond what were then the boundaries of the empire ; some 

1 Staradoub means the old oak. 



218 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

were induced to return to their native land by the liberal 
promises of Catherine II. ; others have again come under 
Eussian sway by the conquest of the countries in which 
they were settled. A number still remain on foreign 
soil ; one at Gumbinnen, in Prussia ; several in Bukovina, 
an Austrian province; others in European Turkey and 
Asia Minor. They have always held aloof from the peo- 
ple about them, and retained strong traces of their Mus- 
covite nationality and origin. The safety they thus se- 
cured, and their liberation from Eussian control, have 
proved of signal advantage to the Easkol, and enabled 
it to arrive subsequently at a regular and independent 
organization, such as, if kept totally within the empire, 
it never could have realized. 

A complete and comprehensive system of organization 
for the Easkol, as a whole, in a religious sense, was ren- 
dered impossible by insuperable difficulties. 

The absence of any well-defined theological creed or 
standard, the free exercise allowed to individual opinion, 
have given rise to innumerable sects. Upwards of two 
hundred were reckoned in the eighteenth century ; many 
have disappeared, and are disappearing ; more have arisen, 
and are constantly arising, harmonizing, like the denom- 
inations of Protestantism, to a certain extent, but with- 
out having a similarly stable, definite, and universally 
accepted basis of belief , and expressing every conceivable 
variety of doctrine. 

As a social or political institution, in which the relig- 
ious element enters to a large degree, the consolidation 
of the Easkol, accomplished with very considerable, if 
not entire, success, was facilitated by the xoeculiar spirit 
of association, and by the aptitude for self-government 
which are characteristics of the Eussian people. 

The leaders, succeeding to the inflammatory enthusi- 



ORGANIZATION OF THE RASKOL.— POPOVTSISM. 219 

asts who originated the movement — the Denissoffs and 
Koveline, with many others — have generally been men 
of action and practical sense, evincing great administra- 
tive ability. They have, by their energy and skilful man- 
agement, given a material unity and solidity to the lias- 
kol which it could never have attained if it had contin- 
ued to be, as at the first, simply a religious manifestation. 

For one of the two great branches of the Easkol, for 
Popov tsism, the difficulties in the way of a religious or- 
ganization arose chiefly from circumstance, and not from 
principle, and they were consequently far less formida- 
ble than the obstacles encountered by the other branch, 
Bezpopovtsism. The former has recently arrived at a so- 
lution of the problem which proves apparently satisfac- 
tory, and is accepted by the great majority of its adhe- 
rents, though not by all ; before treating of this event, 
however, it will be interesting to review the vicissitudes 
through which it passed. 

The recognition of the necessity of a priesthood for the 
existence of a Church maintained, among the Popovtsi, 
the ancient dogmas of Orthodoxy, and preserved tho 
unity of the faith. Indulgence in freedom of interpre- 
tation was more circumscribed, and division into sects, 
by differences of individual opinion, was less frequent 
than among the Bezpopovtsi. Almost the only element 
of controversy was the conditions requisite for the ad- 
mission of popes. As their clergy was recruited among 
refugees from the established Church, they were con- 
temptuously styled " Beglopopovtsi," x or " Community 
of runaway priests." These popes, before reception, 
were subjected to humiliating ordeals of abjuration, pu- 
rification, and penitence; they were rebaptized; some- 

1 From beglii, runaway, and pope, priest. 



220 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

times immersed in full canonicals, lest, by a prior removal 
of their insignia, their sacred attributes should be washed 
away. 

Eot much respect could be felt for men thrust forth 
from their own Church for misconduct, or tempted from 
it by cupidity. Generally they were well remunerated, 
but held in light esteem as mere hirelings, in accidental 
possession of certain exclusive powers. They were treat- 
ed with increasing indifference in process of time, and 
deacons, or even unordained persons, were accepted and 
allowed to officiate ; they were kept in strict dependence, 
and had but little influence over the congregations who 
paid their stipend, chose or rejected them at pleasure, 
and retained all power and authority in their own hands. 
This predominance of the lay element in the administra- 
tion of Church affairs was a common feature of both 
branches of the Easkol. 

From their early days the Baskolniks of both divisions 
favored the establishment of "sheets," or hermitages, 
convents, and similar institutions, in remote districts, or 
over the border in an adjacent country, to serve as places 
of refuge and religious centres. Dissensions, rivalries, 
differences of opinion, creating numerous sects, constant- 
ly arose, and no one establishment among them all rose 
to any pre-eminence, or was able to impose its authority 
as supreme over either the one or the other branch. 

A terrible public calamity afforded them both an 
opportunity, of which they cleverly availed, to remedy 
this grievous want of a central head. 

The plague broke out at Moscow during the reign of 
Catherine II., and raged with unparalleled fury; all 
efforts of the government to stay its ravages or to afford 
adequate relief were insufficient. In this appalling cri- 
sis the empress made appeal to the charity and gen- 






FEODOCIANS. 221 

erosity of all her subjects for the general good. Great 
public misfortunes level minor distinctions and draw to- 
gether communities suffering from a common evil ; the 
people responded heartily to their sovereign's call, re- 
gardless of class or creed, and among the first to offer 
their services were the Feodocians. 

This sect, named from its founder, Feodocei', was an 
offshoot from the Pomortsi, or Dwellers by the sea- 
shore, a very numerous branch of the Bezpopovtsi, in- 
habiting the region between the great lakes and the 
White Sea. It seceded from the main body, whose 
centre was at Vygoretsk, on the river Vyg, early in the 
eighteenth century, on account of the extreme violence 
and ultra nature of the opinions of its adherents and 
their fanatical enthusiasm. 

About 1737 it first appeared at Moscow, where it 
labored secretly, but most earnestly, to propagate its 
doctrines, which were eminently hostile to the govern- 
ment, and maintained the principle of resistance to the 
tsar as Antichrist. Its efforts were crowned with such 
measure of success as to render it one of the most influ- 
ential of the many sects of the Bezpopovtsi. 

Its leaders, shrewd and astute men, saw their oppor- 
tunity in the public distress, and, masking an ulterior 
purpose under the guise of solicitude for the general 
welfare, begged permission to contribute to the measures 
of relief, and offered to create, at their own expense, 
hospitals for their sick, and to give burial to their dead. 
Other sects of the Bezpopovtsi joined with them, and 
the Popovtsi followed the example. Charitable im- 
pulses, always strong and easily aroused among the 
Kussian people, were stimulated by the evident contin- 
gent advantages likely to accrue, and which the Easkol- 
niks, from their greater spirit of initiative and intelli- 



022 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

gence, were quick to realize. Their request was granted 
in 1771, and immediately the Bezpopovtsi at Praobraj en- 
ski, and the Popovtsi at Eogojski, outlying and desert 
suburbs of Moscow, founded the establishments which 
became, each respectively for its own branch, the head- 
quarters of the Easkol. They were under the direction 
of men animated by fervent religious enthusiasm, but 
possessed also of sound practical sense, knowledge of 
business, and great sagacity ; they could, moreover, de- 
pend implicitly upon the obedience and devotion of their 
followers, and were amply supplied by them with the 
necessary funds. 

At first they were content with what the emergen- 
cies of the times demanded, having, however, wise fore- 
thought for the future. Very extensive grounds were 
surrounded by high walls, within which cemeteries were 
set apart and hospitals erected, secluded from public 
curiosity. Acting with consummate prudence and cir- 
cumspection, they sedulously seized upon every favorable 
opportunity to extend their privileges, insisting upon the 
charitable nature and purpose of their work, but always 
humble and avoiding attention, quietly profiting by the 
general disdain which they inspired, and skilfully avail- 
ing themselves of their wealth to influence the venal and 
corrupt officials of the government. 

Under Alexander I., Koveline, a leader of the Feodo- 
cians, a very adroit and able manager, succeeded in ob- 
taining a very much larger measure of independence, 
with permission to create homes for the destitute and 
similar benevolent institutions. Concessions accorded to 
one branch were extended to the other, and, within com- 
paratively few years, these modest establishments had 
grown to be great and powerful communities, had ac- 
quired official recognition under regular charters, secured 



rKAOBRAJENSKI AND ROGOJSKI. 223 

the right of self-organization and government, with au- 
thority to manage their property and affairs free from 
clerical or official supervision; they had each a corpor- 
ate seal, a treasury, their own laws and regulations, ad- 
ministered by a council or governing body almost totally 
without control. 

Around these centres the Easkolniks gathered in great 
numbers, building houses, establishing shops and facto- 
ries, until these once deserted suburbs were transformed 
into flourishing and populous districts. Thus within the 
ancient capital, the stronghold of Orthodoxy, despised 
and persecuted followers of a proscribed creed finally 
secured foothold, and found safe refuge under the aogis 
of government protection. 

From these headquarters their influence radiated forth 
over the whole land ; they created subsidiary branches, 
subject to the central authority, and gathered in abun- 
dant wealth from gifts and bequests ; at the height of 
their prosperity they were said to have had in their treasu- 
ries the enormous sum of ten millions of roubles (about 
£1,300,000). ' Their leaders, combining to a remarkable 
degree worldly shrewdness with religious enthusiasm, 
made these establishments, not merely centres for the 
propagation of their doctrines, but also centres of trade, 
of manufactures, and of commerce. They offered, not 
only a home for their destitute and suffering brethren, 
but a refuge for all fugitives, outlaws, deserters, and 
wanderers, who, under pretence of religious sympathy, 
claimed protection and succor, and in this motley army 
of followers they found cheap and willing tools, ignorant 
but zealous emissaries. During the tolerant reigns of 
Catherine II. and Alexander I. these institutions had 

1 See note, page 174. 



224: THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

grown to such proportions as to excite popular jealousy 
and government suspicions ; their leaders were accused 
of illicit and underhand machinations, of secret plotting, 
dangerous to public welfare and to the authority of the 
State; they became involved in lawsuits and disputes 
regarding property alleged to have been obtained under 
false pretences, or by bequests under pressure of improper 
influences. An inquiry was ordered by Nicholas, which 
resulted in the confiscation of their riches, the sequestra- 
tion of their buildings and estates, and, gravest calamity 
of all, in the loss of their independence. The hospitals 
and cemeteries were left to their charge, but an imperial 
commissioner was added to their board of administra- 
tion. Their religious services were prohibited, and their 
churches were closed or handed over to priests appoint- 
ed by the Holy Synod. 

By this last measure the Popovtsi suffered equally 
with their radical brethren of the other branch, inasmuch 
as their clergy, although of Orthodox ordination, were, 
as renegades from the established Church, forbidden to 
officiate. 

Eogojski, the headquarters of Popovtsism, had provided 
means for its social organization, but it never had pos- 
sessed any sacred authority, and had not, nor could it 
have, satisfied the eager aspirations of its disciples for 
an ecclesiastical government of divine origin. 

For many long and weary years they had endeavored 
to find an escape from their only, but humiliating, method 
of recruiting the priesthood, and to establish a hierarchy 
of their own of regular apostolic descent. Some among 
them had advocated as efficacious the imposition of hands 
by a deceased prelate, present at least in the flesh, but 
the ceremony was incomplete ; a corpse could not, and 
no one present could for it, pronounce the sacramental 



RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION OF THE POPOVTSI. 225 

words. Every effort, for well-nigh two hundred years, 
had proved futile, but a solution of this grave problem 
was reached at Last during the troubled revolutionary 
period towards the middle of the present century, and it 
came from a quarter as strange as it was unexpected 

These old Muscovites, the most conservative and reac- 
tionary of the population, "Russians, sons of Russians," 
were, by a singular contradiction, indebted for it to men 
with whom they had nothing in common, who were bit- 
terly opposed to what they held in deepest reverence. 
Their new auxiliaries were, primarily, political exiles 
from Russia, who were in open revolt against their sov- 
ereign. They were aided by the emissaries of radicalism 
and revolution throughout Europe, who saw in the Rus- 
sian emperor the chief opponent of their schemes. 

The Raskol seemed to offer a fertile field for their 
operations ; its multitudinous ramifications and hidden 
affiliations all over the land afforded every opportunity 
for secret plotting and intrigue. Its millions of adepts, 
although intelligent and prosperous, were ignorant and 
credulous, enthusiastic and easily excited ; they were, for 
the most part, from precept and education, at heart hos- 
tile to the government, and would, if their sympathies 
could be aroused, prove a terrible foe to the authorita- 
tive and autocratic principle personified by the tsar. 
Actuated by these ideas, the revolutionary leaders en- 
deavored to unite the liberal progressive party of young 
Russia with the old Muscovite conservatives, but these 
antagonistic elements could not harmonize ; they were 
too widely at variance ; the modern scepticism, or athe- 
ism, of the radicals shocked the profoundly religious 
sentiments of the Old Believers ; while, from a political 
point of view, they could never agree, and the attempt 
failed. The effort was, however, suggestive, and shortly 
15 



226 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

afterwards, partisans of Polish nationality seized upon 
the idea which prompted it as a means of arousing pow- 
erful opposition to the oppressor of their country's liber- 
ties. With wider views and a better comprehension of 
the situation, they not only saw a possible nucleus of re- 
sistance among the Old Believers, but they also devised 
a way of rendering it available for their purposes. They 
conceived the bold plan of creating, for these schismatics, 
a religious centre beyond the boundaries of the empire ; 
of consolidating the various elements of opposition exist- 
ing in the numerous discontented and disaffected sects 
scattered throughout the land, by providing for them a 
supreme pontiff whom they would all recognize and obey. 
They expected, by thus satisfying their ardent and long- 
deferred aspirations for a spiritual head, to insure their 
sympathy and connivance. In order to render their co- 
operation effectual, and to make it subservient to the 
aims of the Polish party, it was essential that this pontiff 
should have his seat where he would be safe from all at- 
tempts of the imperial government ; and that, while ap- 
parently free to exercise independent action, he should 
be under the influence and control of the insurrectionary 
leaders. 

They commenced operations among a colony of Cos- 
sack Old Believers, situated in the Dobrutscha, near the 
Russian frontier, who had emigrated in the eighteenth 
centur}^, and who still maintained close and frequent re- 
lations with their co-religionists within the empire. By 
exciting hopes of a re-establishment of their ancient faith, 
by vague and illusory promises of Cossack independence, 
as naturally following the restoration of Polish national- 
ity, their confidence was gained, and, through them, the 
expectations of their brethren in Kussia were aroused. 

After many long and fruitless researches a personage, 



HIERARCHY OF THE l'OPOVTSI ESTABLISHED. 227 

endowed with the necessary qualifications and willing 
to accept the position, was discovered among the Eastern 
prelates. Ambrosius, formerly Primate of Bosnia, re- 
cently deposed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, con- 
sented to adopt the creed of the Old Believers, and to 
become their head. In 184G he was formally installed 
as metropolitan, and established his official residence in 
an important convent of their community at Belo-Kri- 
nitsa (Fontana-alba), in Bukovina, a province of Gallicia. 
The situation, at a point where the three great Slavo- 
nic empires meet, was well chosen. It lies within Aus- 
trian territory, and Austria was not sorry to have with- 
in its grasp this thorn in the Russian side, wherewith to 
counteract or retaliate for Eussian intrigues among her 
Slavonic population. After many vicissitudes, depend- 
ing on the shifting political relations of the two empires, 
Ambrosias finally secured tranquil possession of his ec- 
clesiastical throne. His authority was speedily acknowl- 
edged by the Old Believers in Austria and Turkey ; in 
Russia there was more hesitation, but, notwithstanding 
the repugnance of some of the more conservative to ac- 
cept a foreigner, or, as they styled him, " a priest from 
beyond the sea," as their spiritual chief, he was formally 
so recognized by the leaders of the Raskol at Rogojski, 
and by the great body of their followers. 

His first step was the creation of a regular episcopate. 
He divided the empire into dioceses, and appointed bish- 
ops subject to his authority, as in England the pope of 
Rome established a Catholic hierarchy, independent of 
the English government. 

These schismatic prelates and their priests, known to 
the initiated only, are active and zealous emissaries ; 
they officiate in secret and in disguise, wander freely 
over the land, protected by the devotion of their adhe- 



228 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

rents, or, if detected, easily purchasing immunity from 
venal officials with the abundant resources at their com- 
mand. 

Danger to Russia was apprehended from the existence, 
beyond the control of its government, of an irresponsible 
power, wielding such extensive authority over a large 
portion of the population, and it formed the subject of 
frequent remonstrance and of much diplomatic corre- 
spondence with Austria. It was a constant annoyance 
to the Emperor Nicholas, whose haughty spirit could ill 
brook the slight to his authority. He was angered that 
his determination to stamp out Dissent should be thwart- 
ed by this insignificant chief of a despised sect, whose 
adherents were an ignorant mob of peasants and serfs. 
Opposition on their part to his attempts to Russianize 
Poland was feared by him, and expected by the Poles, 
but both were disappointed; the loyalty of the Old 
Believers to the tsar proved stronger than their grat- 
itude to the Polish patriots, and, as apprehensions from 
this source disappeared, the existence of a schismatic 
pontiff was disregarded. Ambrosius, alternately sup- 
pressed, ignored, and tolerated by Austria, as circum- 
stances dictated, died in possession of his ecclesiastical 
dignity. Cyril, a Russian, succeeded, and, during the 
Crimean war, disaffection, possibly overt resistance to 
imperial* authority, was feared, but again patriotism and 
national sentiment rose superior to ceremonial differ- 
ences, and the Old Believers recognized in the Turks the 
traditional enemy of Orthodoxy and holy Russia. 

The accession of Alexander II. aroused hopes of a 
brighter future. The elders of Rogojski induced their 
metropolitan to visit his flock ; he came to Russia in 1863, 
disguised and secretly, but probably with the connivance 
of the government. 



THE POPOVTSI; DISSENSIONS; THEIR LOYALTY. 229 

A council, under his direction, established regulations 
for the Popovtsi, and this branch of the Haskol, thus pro- 
vided with a regular hierarchy and a complete organiza- 
tion, seemed definitively constituted as an independent 
and united Church. Dissensions, however, soon arose ; the 
new clergy, less docile than their renegade predecessors, 
resented the domination of the lay element in the com- 
munity, and arrogated to themselves an authority which 
the congregations were reluctant to acknowledge. The 
council, from prudential motives, maintained Belo-Kri- 
nitsa as the seat of the pontiff, but appointed a vicar to 
reside in Russia as his representative ; the metropolitan, 
suspicious, and apprehensive of diminution of his dignity, 
refused to delegate his powers to a vicegerent. By this 
conflict of authority Popovtsism was, ere its organiza- 
tion had attained full maturity, threatened with internal 
divisions. 

In the midst of these dissensions the Polish insurrec- 
tion of 18G3 broke out, and the Old Believers again fell 
under suspicion, and were threatened with the harsh treat- 
ment which doubtful allegiance would merit. They in- 
dignantly repudiated the charges of treachery and trea- 
son, and eagerly offered pledges of their loyalty " to God 
and the Tsar." They sent Cyril back to his foreign home, 
and the council proposed to cease, for a time, all relations 
with him. Their leaders at Rogojski addressed the em- 
peror with assurances of their fidelity, and issued an en- 
cyclical letter to all members of the "Holy Catholic 
Apostolic Church of the Old Believers," with an exposi- 
tion of their doctrines calculated to conciliate the au- 
thorities of the established Church and of the State, de- 
claring that " the Old Believers who recognize the neces- 
sity of a priesthood agree in all questions of dogma with 
the Greco-Russian Church ; they worship the same God, 



230 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

believe in the same Jesus Christ, and are truly more in 
accord with the national Church than are all sects who 
reject the priesthood." They anathematized revolution- 
ists as " enemies of religion and of country," as " children 
of the impious Yoltaire ;" and affirmed that the official 
Church and that of the Old Believers, being in harmony 
on all fundamental points, may exist, side by side, in mu- 
tual toleration and Christian brotherhood. 

These declarations at this critical period were gladly 
welcomed by the emperor and the Holy Synod, and 
aroused hopes of eventual agreement and reunion. 

Language of this tenor, held by the descendants of the 
stern enthusiasts who, two centuries previously, had 
held both Church and State to be accursed, indicates 
the great change that had taken place among the mem- 
bers of this branch of the Kaskol. 

There were still among them some who fanatically 
adhered to their ancient prejudices, and, on the subject 
of the circular published by their leaders, the Popovtsi 
were divided ; by far the greater number, and the more 
intelligent, known as the " Okroujniki," or " Circular- 
ists," approved of it ; the minority, comprising the more 
ignorant and obstinate, called the " Eazdorniki," or 
" those who quarrel," maintained the primitive doctrines 
of the schism, and renewed the controversy upon the 
spelling of the name Jesus, stoutly averring that the 
" Christ Iissous " of the State Church could not be the 
same divine person as the " Christ Issous " of the Old 
Believers, and must be Antichrist. 

A second council, convened at Belo-Krinitsa, served 
only to further embitter the discussion, to weaken the 
authority of their primate, and to detach from their body 
many of its influential partisans. 

Under these circumstances, with an evident desire on 



DESIRE FOR UNION.— THE EDINOVERTSI. 231 

either side for reconciliation, a speedy end to Popovts- 
ism, by its absorption into the Mother Church, might 
seem probable, but many obstacles still intervene, and 
chief among them is the difficulty of satisfying their 
rival pretensions. 

Old Believers insist upon the ancient rites; they fur- 
ther demand that, having been condemned by a council, 
they shall, with equal solemnity, be absolved by a coun- 
cil, and acknowledged to have ever been steadfast in the 
Orthodox faith ; the Holy Synod might yield, as regards 
ceremonies and verbal differences, but, as to the graver 
question of doctrine, it exacts submission, recognition of 
error in the past, and repentance, before it can allow the 
Church to receive them back into full communion. 

A similar desire on the part of the State and of the 
Synod to end and heal the schism in the Church was 
evinced during the tolerant reign of Catherine II., tow- 
ards the close of the eighteenth century. In order to 
restore unity and bring Dissenters back to their alle- 
giance, they were ready with every concession possible. 
The ritual in use before the days of Nikon was ac- 
knowledged to be canonical, and priests were specially 
ordained to officiate in accordance with it. Some of the 
Old Believers, less imbued with prejudice, or more tole- 
rant in matters of conscience, yielded to the earnest ap- 
peals and exhortations of the clergy, supported by the 
influence and authority of the government, and were 
enrolled alongside, as it were, of the Orthodox in regu- 
lar standing, as belonging to a branch of the established 
Church, under the appellation of " Edinovertsi," or 
" Uniate Believers." ' 

Had a similar step been taken when Alexis was on 

1 From edin, one, and vera, faith. 



232 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the throne it might have stifled the Easkol at its birth ; 
nearly all that had been demanded originally was ac- 
corded, but it could no longer suffice. A century and 
more had passed — long years of struggling, persecution, 
and suffering; Dissent had crystallized and hardened 
into schism, with habits of independence and of free 
inquiry ; it had become impatient of control, with an in- 
dividuality of its own, social and political, as well as re- 
ligious, and a deeper principle than one of mere cere- 
mony was at stake. The sincerity of those in power 
was doubted ; Old Eitualists, now Old Believers and 
schismatics, feared the Church and the gifts it proffered. 

Catherine's plan was in many respects akin to that of 
the pope when he created the Greek Uniate Church as 
a middle ground between the creeds of Moscow and 
Kome, with the Jesuitical hope, in either case, that, hav- 
ing traversed half the distance separating Catholicism, 
or the Easkol, from Orthodoxy, the semi-convert might 
be easily induced to complete the journey. 

The restrictions imposed upon the Edinovertsi were 
the most obvious hinderances to the prosperity of the 
sect. It could not be recruited from among the mem- 
bers of the established Church, of whom many were in 
secret sympathy with Dissent, but might have been sat- 
isfied with this intermediate creed, inasmuch as secession 
from the Orthodox communion was absolutely prohib- 
ited ; it was not acceptable to the great body of those 
who openly professed to be Old Believers, on account of 
its halting, temporizing character, and of the incom- 
pleteness of its organization. The Greek Uniate Church, 
to which it has been compared above, had owed its suc- 
cess in a large degree not merely to a special liturgy and 
ritual, but also to the possession of a regular and inde- 
pendent hierarchy ; to Edinovertsism no episcopate was 



TRESENT ASPECT OF TOPOVTSISM. 233 

allowed, and its priests were ordained by, and subordi- 
nate to, the bishops of the established Church ; they con- 
sequently inspired neither confidence nor respect, but 
rather suspicion and dislike, as the paid functionaries of 
an alien, if not a hostile, authority, and the denomination 
itself occupied an inferior, uncertain, and humiliating 
position, being neither one thing nor the other. 

The real and most serious obstacle to its success was 
the radical change wrought by time in the principle and 
spirit of this branch of the Easkol, and which also af- 
fords an explanation of its persistent vitality. It was no 
longer a mere stickling for ancient form and ceremony ; 
it had become, what it now actually is, the expression 
of popular resistance to the enforced union of civil and 
religious government, to the absolute dependence of the 
Church upon the State. 

Old Believers, accustomed by long habit to freedom 
from clerical authority, favor the separation of the spirit- 
ual from the temporal. While they demand the ancient 
rites and former ecclesiastical constitution, with a nation- 
al patriarch, as supreme head of the Church, they do so 
with a keen sense of the importance of restricting cleri- 
cal power within due bounds, and of giving the lay por- 
tion of the community its just and proportionate share 
in the administration of the Church. 

Their ideal would seem to be a national, popular, and 
democratic establishment, united and strong, but inde- 
pendent and free from government interference ; its af- 
fairs under the charge of, and its clergy chosen b} r , all its 
members acting in concert. 

With these aspirations, and from this point of view, 
Popovtsism, or the Easkol of the priestly branch, can 
no longer be deemed a petty, sectarian, or unreasonable 
movement ; it becomes an object of universal interest, 



234: TIIE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

and is entitled to respectful consideration and earnest 
study from all who, without as well as within the em- 
pire, sympathize with the progress of liberal ideas. 

It has been and is vastly more difficult, if it be not 
impossible, for the Bezpopovtsi than for the Popovtsi to 
arrive at any definite ecclesiastical organization. The 
fundamental principle of their doctrine, by destroying 
all faith in the sacerdotal character of the clergy and in 
the existence of a priesthood, or of a Church upon earth, 
seems to preclude all hope of any such result. 

They are deprived of all spiritual bond of union among 
themselves, acknowledge no authority as guide, nor any 
restraint upon individual opinion. They claim for each 
the right of free interpretation of the Scriptures, and 
the exercise of this liberty, together with the habit of 
inquiry which it engenders, has led them to wander 
from the dogmas of Orthodox belief, or, if retaining 
them in theory, to accept such explanations of them as 
suit the wildest fancies and vagaries of the imagination. 

Their sects have become innumerable, ever shifting 
and varying, undergoing constant change and transfor- 
mation, with incessant divisions and subdivisions ; new 
ones spring into existence as the old die out, affording 
evidence of the vitality and energy animating the move- 
ment. They recognize no ministers save their elders or 
" readers," who, chosen by themselves, are generally vir- 
tuous and worthy men, well, and sometimes deeply, versed 
in Scriptural knowledge ; but frequently most extraor- 
dinary, even monstrous, caprice governs their selection. 
Yulgar, loudly self -asserting fanatics impose themselves 
upon a congregation, or, under the influence of sensual 
and erotic excitement, which, among ignorant communi- 
ties where self-indulgence is unrestrained, often accom- 
panies excessive religious exaltation, females of vile and 



CEREMONIES OF THE BEZPOFOVTSL 235 

profligate character are accepted as inspired prophet- 
esses. 

Their Leaders have considerable influence over their 
followers, but exercise no priestly functions save bap- 
tism. Their form of worship is simple and elementary ; 
the Bible is read and expounded, or, in the absence of a 
teacher, the congregation awaits in silence and obscurity 
for a manifestation of the spirit. To this Quakerlike 
simplicity and absence of ceremony the Bezpopovtsi join 
scrupulous regard for the devotional practices of the 
primitive Church ; they strictly observe the fasts, and 
hold the holy images and relics in superstitious venera- 
tion ; they retain the sign of the cross, repeating it in 
their prayers very many times, according to the ancient 
Russian method, and they perform assiduously the " pok- 
loni," or saluations before the Icons. 

Inasmuch as their service is stripped of most of the 
ceremonies of the Church, they attach the more impor- 
tance to such as they have retained, investing them with 
peculiar significance. Certain sects ordain the perform- 
ance of a hundred " pokloni," for the purification of food, 
two hundred at a funeral ; they impose upon a neophyte 
two thousand a day for six weeks, with the addition of 
twenty full prostrations each w T eek. They have a holy 
horror of tobacco, sugar, and coffee, and avoid certain 
dishes, the flesh of unclean animals, such as the hare and 
the pigeon. They seem thus to find compensation for 
the rejection of the spiritual rites of the Church in slav- 
ish and exaggerated compliance with the more gross and 
materialistic. 

Although they have no priests, they have monks and 
nuns, who dwell in " skeets," or hermitages, under strict 
and rigorous rules, holding their property in common, 
and are subject to the authority of a superior, charged 



236 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

with the administration of the interests of the commu- 
nity. Their first important establishment of this nature, 
and from which most of the others issued, was the con- 
vent of Yygoretsk, founded in 1694, near Lake Onega. 
From the earliest days of the Easkol the Bezpopovtsi 
have been very numerous in the region of the great 
lakes and along the shores of the White Sea. "When, in 
the reign of Alexis, they were dislodged from their 
stronghold at Solovetsk, they spread throughout the 
country to the north and east under the general designa- 
tion of "Poinortsi," or "Dwellers by the sea-shore;" at 
the end of the seventeenth century several of their de- 
tached colonies settled along the banks of the river Yyg, 
and within a few years they were united in one commu- 
nity by the efforts of two brothers named Denisoff, men 
of great administrative ability and earnestness, under 
whose wise government and direction they rapidly in- 
creased in numbers and wealth until their establishment 
at Vygoretsk became the most important centre of this 
branch of the Easkol. Divisions soon arose among them, 
as the inevitable result of the freedom they accord to 
personal opinion, and about 1732 a small number seceded 
from the main body under Feodocei, formerly a dea- 
con of the Church, and who died soon afterwards in 
prison. The immediate cause of the secession was a par- 
tial reconciliation of the majority with the State govern- 
ment during the reign of the empress Anna ; they con- 
sented to acknowledge her imperial authority, and to 
make mention of her as tsarina in their prayers. This 
concession shocked the principles of the more fanatic, 
who withdrew, anathematized their weaker brethren, 
and maintained their opposition to the sovereign as An- 
tichrist. 

The stern enthusiasm of these Feodocians, so called 



BEZPOPOVTSI; RECONCILIATION DIFFICULT. 237 

after their leader, gave them pre-eminence among the 
Bezpopovtsi; about 1772 they founded the establishment 
of Praobrajenski at Moscow, which, under their skilful 
and energetic administration, became even more power- 
ful than the neighboring institution of the Popovtsi at 
Kogojski. The more dangerous doctrines of these vio- 
lent sectarians, and the greater prosperity attending 
their efforts, rendered them more liable to the jealous 
hostility of the public and to the suspicions of the gov- 
ernment. Praobrajenski fell, as did Pogojski immedi- 
ately afterwards ; its funds were confiscated ; its council 
was placed under official supervision ; its religious edi- 
fices were purified and handed over to the clergy of the 
national Church ; only the hospitals and cemeteries were 
left to the schismatics. 

Keconciliation between the Bezpopovtsi on the one 
side, and the established Church and imperial govern- 
ment on the other, is still, as in the past, rendered more 
difficult than for the Popovtsi, by the double antagonism 
which exists, by apparently insurmountable obstacles of 
both a religious and political character. 

Kejection of the priesthood and of the sacraments 
means utter condemnation of the whole Church, and 
leads to consequences totally at variance with Christian- 
ity, and subversive of all moral principle. Belief in the 
advent of Antichrist, and in his personal reign, inevitably 
results in hostility to existing institutions, in revolution, 
and in anarchy. 

How to rightly comprehend the two-sided nature of 
their own doctrines, and to adjust them to the duties and 
exigencies of daily life, is the great problem which agi- 
tates and divides the numerous sects of the Bezpopovtsi, 
and the question for the government is not less grave or 
embarrassing. How can heretics and rebels, of whom 



238 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

some, like the Philippovtsi, have preferred self-immola- 
tion in flames to submission, or, like the Stranniki, have 
abjured all civil restraints rather than risk contamination 
with an accursed world, and who, all, have for centuries 
denounced the Church, and preached resistance to the 
emperor, reviling him as the impersonation of Satan, ever 
be rendered peaceful, law-abiding subjects, or be even tol- 
erated in a civilized community ? 

Time, however, softens asperities, and diminishes mor- 
al distances and differences ; common interests suggest 
compromises ; necessity imposes restraints ; the bitter 
passions, aroused by persecution, are soothed by the 
milder spirit of modern civilization ; and the fierce logic 
of fanaticism yields to the persuasive influences of tol- 
eration and forbearance. There are but very few of 
the Bezpopovtsi of to-day who still cling to the strict 
letter of their creed, and regard their sovereign as the 
vicar of Satan, and the incarnation of evil. Some ex- 
plain the reign of Antichrist in a spiritual sense, oth- 
ers wait for fuller manifestations of his presence, and 
all obey existing laws without troubling their con- 
sciences as to the source from which they emanate. 
The very men who profess to believe that the earth is 
under the dominion of the devil are, in point of fact, gen- 
erally as orderly, sober, and discreet members of society 
as their neighbors, who acknowledge the ever-present 
power of the Lord, and an overruling divine Providence. 

The government, desirous of reconciliation, satisfied 
with obedience to the laws and tacit recognition of its 
authority, became tolerant, and ceased to harass or vex 
peaceful subjects on abstract matters of belief ; it re- 
quired, however, as evidence of loyalty, and as acknowl- 
edgment of its supremacy, that schismatics should, like 
the Orthodox, make public mention of the sovereign in 



PRINCIPLES MODIFIED BY TIME. 239 

the prayers of their service. On this score it has been 
content with partial acquiescence. The supplication of 
the national Church for the emperor is long, minutely 
designating each member of the imperial family, Avith 
repeated invocations for the " very pious, very faith- 
ful'' emperor, " Defender of Orthodoxy," "Head of the 
Church ;" laying stress on his titles as spiritual chief as 
well as temporal lord. The recognition of his qualities, 
in this respect, has always been, and is, especially obnox- 
ious to the Bezpopovtsi. 

When Anna proposed to send a high commissioner to 
visit their colonies on the River Vyg, and bestow upon 
them marks of her imperial favor, they were desirous of 
evincing their sense of her gracious condescension, and 
agreed to comply with the custom of her other subjects, 
and introduce the name of the sovereign in their relig- 
ious services. They could not, however, accept the es- 
tablished formula, or recognize the sacred appellations of 
" Orthodox" and " Head of the Church ;" nor could they 
sanction the use of the foreign and impious designation 
of " Emperor ;" but they consented to offer up prayers 
for their ruler under the national and venerated title of 
" Tsar." A minority of their number refused to make 
even this concession, and, headed by Feodocei, seceded 
from the main body and maintained their opposition to 
imperial authority. Time has, however, for the great 
majority, triumphed over the severity of their principles, 
as well as over their prejudices ; and the elders of Prao- 
brajenski, the headquarters of the obstinate Feodocians, 
have, like the Old Believers of Eogojski, sent loyal ad- 
dresses and presents to the emperor and his children. 

The loyalty of these sectarians has been severely tried 
in more recent days, during the Nihilist movement, but 
it has never wavered. JSIhilist writers acknowledge 



240 TIIE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

that " there is no way to influence them to active revo- 
lutionary protest against their oppressors." 

There yet remains between the civil authority, or 
rather between society at large and the Bezpopovtsi, the 
question of marriage and of family ties. "With the rejec- 
tion of the sacerdotal class the sacrament of marriage 
was abrogated ; this doctrine is common to all the sects, 
and its conception and application is the chief source of 
differences among them. 

Is marriage absolutely prohibited, and celibacy oblig- 
atory upon all, or may not some remedy be devised? 
Every conceivable variety of opinion has found advo- 
cates. The most reasonable and moderate recognize a 
conjugal tie, which may be created by the blessing of 
parents, and sanctified by kissing the cross and the Bible 
in presence of the family and of each other. This form 
of oath is, for the Russian, the most solemn that can be 
administered. Others hold that the mutual assent of the 
bridegroom and bride constitutes a marriage which is 
valid, but only while this mutual assent exists. Love 
being in its essence divine, union of hearts can alone au- 
thorize union of lives ; and this estate is holy so long 
only as it is consecrated by mutual affection. Ties, thus 
easily formed, are often durable, for the reason that they 
are so fragile. A simple mode of life, earnest moral and 
religious convictions, the force of habit, and the existence 
of interests in common, tend greatly to mitigate the evils 
attendant upon a union which mere caprice may dissolve ; 
but, notwithstanding this, and in spite of the glamour of 
fine phrases and of eloquent disquisitions upon the ele- 
vating and purifying influences of free love, such a con- 
dition of things is in itself vicious and the cause of vice. 
Human nature is weak, and carnal passions are strong 
among simple peasants, as well as in more civilized com- 
munities, and give rise to similar abuses. 



MARRIAGE AMONG THE BEZPOTOVTSI. 241 

While Raskolniks are justly considered as the most 
honest, frugal, sober, and industrious of the Eussian peo- 
ple, in all the ordinary avocations of life, they are, in all 
that relates to the intercourse of the sexes, held, with 
equal justice, to be the most immoral. But this is not 
the worst feature of the case; free love and free divorce 
are among the lesser evils which flow from their opin- 
ions ; more deplorable still are the consequences arising 
from doctrines which have been inculcated by the more 
rigid of their sects, especially by the Feodocians of Prao- 
brajenski, who have held that all connection of the sexes 
is unlawful, inasmuch as nothing can replace the lost 
sacrament. Their creed is concisely enunciated, " Zshe- 
naty, raz zshenis ; ne zshenaty, ne zshenis " — " Being mar- 
ried, get unmarried ; not married, never marry." Or, as 
a popular catechism states it, " The youth should never 
take wife, the husband should never possess the wife ; 
the maiden should never marry, the wife should never 
bear children." Those who infringed this command- 
ment, and were convicted of having had children, were 
ignominiously expelled from the community, or were 
subjected to severe and humiliating penance. Adhe- 
rence to such maxims was, in the nature of things, im- 
possible, and those who sinned had strong inducement to 
conceal or suppress the evidence of their guilt. Infanti- 
cide was a frequent reproach, substantiated by the dis- 
covery of bodies of newly-born children in draining 
ponds, and by the bribery of officials to prevent sim- 
ilar measures when they were contemplated. 1 Occur- 
rences of this nature were recorded often in provinces 
where the Bezpopovtsi were numerous. Although these 
accusations were strenuously denied, they were natural 

1 "Le Raskol," p. 66; Haxthausen, vol. I, p. 263. 
16 



212 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

consequences of the ferocious doctrine that "when a 
child is conceived, its soul comes not from God the Cre- 
ator, but from the Devil." 

No community, of steadily increasing numbers, could, 
while professing such abominable principles, remain 
united. Many sects seceded from the main body to 
adopt more rational views of the married state, hardly 
advancing, however, beyond an authorized concubinage ; 
the weaker brethren, called " Novozsheny," or the " Ee- 
marrying," were driven forth from the fold with con- 
tumely and insult; the rigid apostles of celibacy, con- 
doners of libertinism, severed all intercourse with them, 
and would neither sit at the same table nor sleep under 
the same roof. 

Under the modifying influences of time and civiliza- 
tion these demoralizing and horrible doctrines, relics of 
a barbarous age, are no longer openly espoused. At 
Praobrajenski, the ancient stronghold of radical Dissent, 
they are rejected, and that they have ever been advo- 
cated, is indignantly denied. While there is ample evi- 
dence of the contrary in the past, their repudiation at 
the present day is indicative of the moral regeneration 
in progress. 

Unhappily the purification of the empire is not com- 
plete, and the strange, unnatural heresies of the old 
Feodocians still retain their hold upon a few extreme 
sects, who find recruits among the most abject of the 
population. The most numerous of these deluded fanat- 
ics are the "Stranniki," or " Wanderers," also called the 
"Begouni," or " Fugitives," who assume, themselves, the 
name of " Pilgrims." Belief in the actual personal reign 
of Antichrist, and in the bodily presence of Satan upon 
earth, is the base and corner-stone of their doctrine. 

This sect sprang into existence during a spasmodic re- 



THE STRANNIKI, OR WANDERERS. 243 

vival of Bezpopovtsism, kindled by the vigorous repn 
ive measures of the government at the time of Pouga- 
tchev's rebellion, towards the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Its founder was a soldier named Elim, who de- 
serted from the army and found refuge in a convent of 
the Feodocians, situated in the wilds of Olonetz. He 
turned monk, became involved in disputes with his supe- 
riors, and appealed to Praobrajcnski for redress; his 
complaint was rejected, whereupon he announced him- 
self as the apostle of a new creed, and went forth preach- 
ing the absolute renunciation of all social ties and obli- 
gations, taking for his text the words of the Saviour, 
" to Leave lather and mother, son and daughter, to take 
up the cross and follow me " (Matthew x., 3G-38). 
Practical application of this allegorical precept soon de- 
generated into vagrancy, and worse. His followers, ab- 
solved from all restraint, social and moral, in open war- 
fare with all constituted authority, shunning all manner 
of work as sinful, lived by mendicancy, and, when that 
failed, by theft ; their ranks were swelled by vagabonds 
and ruffians, ready to embrace a faith so much in accord- 
ance with their ideas. Pillage, robbery, even murder, to 
secure means of subsistence, were sanctioned, or incul- 
cated as religious duties. They made friends and pros- 
elytes among the ignorant and superstitious population, 
chiefly in Kostroma and Yaroslav, where they terrified 
the peasantry by their threats, or imposed upon them by 
claims of peculiar sanctity and self-abnegation. Their 
mode of procedure was calculated to impress the excita- 
ble imaginations of the country people dwelling in the 
solitary depths of the forest ; they would mysteriously, at 
night, gather round a lonely hut and, unseen in the dark- 
ness, chant devotional hymns in a solemn, melancholy 
strain, and appeal to ancient Slavonic hospitality, invok- 



24:4: THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ing curses upon the household that should deny them 
charity. Often the simple-minded boor, carried away 
by his fears and crazed fancies, would abandon home, 
family, and all, to join these self-appointed saints. 1 

They gave a literal interpretation to the words of the 
Gospel, and renounced the world ; they would have no 
abode, own no property, acknowledge no law, no alle- 
giance, no obligation, and justified their rupture with 
society on the plea that Satan ruled supreme. They 
would carry no passports nor papers to establish their 
identity, and defaced the imperial arms as the seal of the 
" Beast ;" they prohibited marriage, held all things in 
common, and called each other " brother and sister." 

In this co-fraternity there are two degrees of affilia- 
tion — that of " pilgrims," or " fugitives," under vows of 
vagrancy and poverty, and that of "entertainers," or 
" hospitallers," " strannopreemrtsi." 2 The latter are nov- 
ices, who, secretly adhering to their tenets, continue to 
pursue their ordinary avocations, and whose duty is, 
pending complete initiation, to afford refuge and help 
to their brethren. The Pilgrims only are received into 
full communion by a baptismal rite, which imposes utter 
renunciation of the world and a mendicant life. This 
ceremony is performed at night, in desert places, and, in 
preference, with freshly-fallen rain, or the water of some 
distant pool, as the rivers and lakes are contaminated by 
the use of the unrighteous. 

They have no churches, but worship in secret retreats, 
in the depths of the forest, around trees, on which they 
hang the holy images. The hospitallers, in considera- 
tion for human frailty, are allowed a time of probation, 
but before death they must enter into full communion 

^'LeKaskol/'p. 59. 

2 From utranno, a stranger, and preeimets, welcoming, receiving. 



THE STRANNIKI, OR WANDERERS. 245 

by holy baptism. Each pilgrim bears his wooden platter 
and spoon; they will neither pray nor eat in the pres- 
ence of the worldly, or of their own novices; they sur- 
round themselves with mystery, and recognize each other 
by secret signs; their adepts are trained to strict obedi- 
ence, and may, or, if so bid, must, without question, min- 
ister to the wants of a pilgrim without seeing his face 
or hearing his voice. By their extensive ramifications, 
by the blind devotion of their adherents, and by the se- 
crecy that shrouds their movements, they are assured of 
immunity from detection, and of freedom in the propaga- 
tion of their doctrines. 

The reign of Nicholas was the period of their greatest 
prosperity. This monarch, the impersonation of abso- 
lute power, implacable enemy of liberalism and progress, 
was hostile to spiritual as well as to civil freedom. He 
believed that heretics who differed from his opinions 
were guilty of criminal obstinacy, and merited the harsh 
severity he conceived it to be his duty to exercise ; unity 
of faith he deemed essential for the State ; he would 
have but one Church, one creed, and one will in his do- 
minions ; his subjects should not only obey the laws he 
proclaimed, they should worship as he directed ; the cel- 
ebrated maxim of Count Ouvarov that " Autocracy, Or- 
thodoxy, and Nationality are the three principles upon 
which the social fabric of the empire rests," ' was the 
basis of his policy ; he grudgingly accorded a measure of 
toleration to the mongrel Church of the " Edinovertsi," 
but pursued all dissenting sects with relentless and per- 
sistent severity. 

The people were miserable and discontented, their con- 
dition pitiable, their desire for relief intense, and they 

1 "LeRaskol,"p. 36. 



2±6 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

listened with willing ears to advocates of resistance to 
their oppressors ; they welcomed those who offered a 
hope of escape from the tyranny which made their lives 
a burden. These missionaries of revolt taught secretly 
in barracks and in prisons, as well as among the suffer- 
ing and wretched peasantry. Runaway serfs, outlaws, es- 
caped convicts, fugitives from Siberia, deserters fleeing 
from the terrible life-long military service, were received 
among them ; they encouraged mendicancy as a merito- 
rious profession, and to all vagabonds without papers, 
" brocliagi," as they were called, they offered a refuge 
from police pursuit. 

This extreme sect, recruited among the dregs of the 
people, is the illustration and logical result of the Raskol 
pushed to its farthest limit ; it is the final and most en- 
ergetic expression of popular opposition to the exactions 
of an all-pervading despotism, to the worries of an insa- 
tiable, vexatious bureaucracy, to the dreaded military 
conscription, to hopeless servitude of body and soul. Its 
adherents could offer only passive resistance, but their 
exalted fanaticism welcomed punishment, and even death, 
in evidence of their determination and sincerity ; like the 
martyrs of old, in a nobler cause, their blood and their 
sufferings were the seed of their faith. 

Where rigor and severity have failed, reform, liberal 
measures, relief from cruel and crushing abuses, the ab- 
olition of serfdom and its attendant evils, with the con- 
sequent amelioration in the social and moral condition 
of the people, are gradually eradicating these extrava- 
gant and monstrous ideas by forcing their last refuge 
among the lowest and most degraded of the population. 

The anomalous position of children born among Ras- 
kolniks, how to determine their civil rights and settle 
questions of property and inheritance, has long been a 



LEGAL MARRIAGE FOR RASKOLNIKS. 247 

puzzling problem for the government. The only mar- 
riage that had hitherto been recognized by the Russian 
code was the religious ceremony, celebrated by the clergy 
of the established Church, which alone has had authority 
to keep the official registers of births and deaths. 

The Bezpopovtsi disavowed marriage altogether, and 
the clergy of the Popovtsi had no legal standing, so that 
the ceremony performed by them was of no effect. In 
the eye of the law all children born among the Paskol- 
niks of cither branch were illegitimate, incapable of in- 
heriting. 

Custom, and the patriarchal habits of the people, aided 
by the connivance of a venal administration, afforded in 
practice a partial relief ; but a complete and satisfactory 
solution of the difficulty seemed beyond reach. The 
only possible remedies appeared to be recognition of the 
various sects and giving the force of law to the ceremo- 
nies adopted by them, or the institution of a civil mar- 
riage. 

The first method suggested seriously affected the 
Church and the interests of the official clergy, and was, 
moreover, insufficient, inasmuch as many sects recog- 
nized no religious ceremony nor any form of marriage ; 
the second was totally at variance with the precepts of 
the Orthodox creed, and equally repugnant to the Eas- 
kolniks, who, on that point, agreed with the Church, and 
who also strongly objected to the registration which it 
required. 

Finally, in 1874, an expedient was devised which prom- 
ises to satisfy present emergencies, and conciliates con- 
flicting opinions. Special registers for Easkolniks are 
placed in charge of the police and district authorities, 
and they are empowered, after publication of the bans 
for a week, to receive and enter therein the declaration 



248 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

of the bridal couple, and of the witnesses, to the effect 
that a marriage has taken place ; they may thereupon, 
without inquiry as to the performance of any ceremony, 
grant a certificate which is valid in law as evidence of 
marriage, confers upon the contracting parties the same 
rights as a regular marriage before a priest, and sub- 
jects them, in like manner, to the jurisdiction of the ordi- 
nary tribunals in all matters appertaining to marriage 
and divorce. 

This measure is as yet limited in its application to the 
million or more schismatics enrolled upon the official 
lists ; its benefit for them is very great ; it regularizes 
their social position and that of their children, relieves 
them from grievous humiliation, and elevates them, both 
in their own estimation and before the law, to an equal- 
ity with their fellow-subjects. Restricted as it yet is, it 
may well rank high among the many wise reforms of 
the late reign, and affords palpable evidence of the spirit 
animating both State and Church in dealing with the 
momentous problems which the religious question pre- 
sents. 

For a full comprehension of the many and great diffi- 
culties encountered in the attempt to arrive at a full so- 
lution of this complicated and perplexing subject, it is 
necessary to pursue the inquiry further, to descend to 
the lower strata of Russian Dissent, and to extend inves- 
tigation alongside of and below the Easkol, properly so 
called, with its many branches and ramifications. In 
these depths of popular superstition, underneath the Old 
Believers, who are in partial harmony with the Church, 
and the No Priests, who reject Church and clergy, there 
are numerous obscure and mysterious sects ; some in- 
digenous, evolved from the excitable, prolific imagina- 
tion of the Russian people, without direct affiliation with 



LOWER RAMIFICATIONS OF DISSENT. 249 

the Haskol ; others of foreign origin, either disseminat- 
ing rationalistic and communistic theories, which have 
analogy with AVestern ideas, or presenting strange and 
fantastic doctrines, which, in their extravagance, rival 
and seem to revive the wildest vagaries of ancient East- 
ern fanaticism. 



CHAPTER XL 

Sects not Belonging to the Raskol. — Mystical and Rationalistic Sects. 
— Erratic Sects. — Recent Sects. — Vitality of Sectarian Spirit. — Atti- 
tude of Government towards Dissent. 

There are in Russia, apart from, and independent of, 
the Raskol, strictly speaking, numerous other sects, har- 
monizing in some degree with its extreme ramifications, 
but drawing their inspiration from- different sources, and, 
in most respects, separate and distinct from it. They did 
not originate in any rupture between ancient tradition 
and modern innovation, but in rejection of all Orthodox, 
in many instances of all Christian, doctrine or tradition. 

Yiewed as a whole, Russian sects exhibit singular con- 
trasts : those which pertain to the Raskol are distin- 
guished for scrupulous adherence to form and ceremo- 
nial, and are imbued with a rigidly conservative, reac- 
tionary spirit ; while the others, making clean sweep of 
dogma and ritual, rush to the contrary extreme, and es- 
pouse the most advanced, novel, and revolutionary ideas. 

This wide divergence is due to the character of the 
people, excessive in all things, in revolt as in submission, 
and also to the constitution of the Eastern Church. In 
it, as in the Church of Rome, the various elements are so 
combined, and are so mutually dependent, that difference 
of opinion on fundamental principles is inadmissible, and 
denial of one article of belief involves rejection of them 
all; minor questions of ritual and discipline only are 
open for discussion. 

Amid the divers and contradictory characteristics of 



SECTS NOT BELONGING TO THE EASKOL 251 

sects foreign to the Easkol, one feature is common to 
them all — disregard of form and ceremony, of tradition 
and authority. They proclaim contempt for the letter 
of the law, but pretend to cling to its essence; they boast 
the | on of spiritual religion, pure and nndefilecL 

Freed from all trammels, independent of all control, ex- 
ercising full liberty of opinion, they pursue their ratioci- 
nations to their logical but, frequently, extravagant and 
absurd conclusions. 

The original sources from which these various creeds 
arose cannot be accurately determined ; they must bo 
sought beyond the limits of the Eussian race, both in 
the AVest and in the East, and are Oriental as well as Eu- 
ropean. Of these sects some are tinged with the forgot- 
ten Christian heresies of the first centuries, others are 
blindly groping in and about the theories which form 
the subject of modern thought and inquiry. Many, 
which appear to exhibit results emanating from contact 
with the west of Europe, are, from this possible historic 
affiliation, and a certain assimilation in their teachings, 
collectively designated by native authors as Eussian 
Quakerism. But the term is not exact ; their doctrines 
are too varied, too peculiar, notwithstanding some points 
of accord, for so comprehensive a classification. Others 
might, with more propriety, be called Gnostic ; they pre- 
sent a curious mixture of realism and mysticism, of pa- 
gan and Christian ideas, and offer such strange analogies 
with notable heresies of the early Church that Eussian 
writers have revived for them fhe ancient names, as, for 
instance, the "Montani," so called, probably, from the 
" Montanists,'' heretics of the third century, who, like 
their modern prototypes, "maintained an enthusiastic 
succession of prophecy."' 

They all proclaim the spiritual nature of their belief. 



252 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

and may be classed in two categories, according as they 
trust to inspiration, or as they rely upon reason and free 
inquiry. 

The former are mystical, inoculated with Gnostic her- 
esies, reproducing and exaggerating the eccentricities and 
aberrations of ancient fanaticism. The latter are ration- 
alistic, proclaiming a reformatory, higher, more philo- 
sophic doctrine ; they aim at a religion free from dog- 
mas and ceremonies, similar to that of the more ad- 
vanced denominations of Protestantism. 

In the sombre and nrysterious recesses of the Russian 
mind, in the constantly active workings of popular 
thought, there is a strange admixture of the fantastic 
and monstrous heresies of the early and middle ages 
fermenting with modern progressive ideas, crudely con- 
ceived and partially understood ; the grossest and most 
materialistic impostures of the past are revived in pres- 
ence of vague and indefinite aspirations for a better 
knowledge of the truth, as seen in the clearer light of 
the present day. These two groups of sects, antagonistic 
in the nature of their doctrines, the one appealing to the 
senses and the imagination, the other to reason and re- 
flection, both claim to be striving after a purer, more 
elevated, and more spiritual religion. 

The mystic sects all accept and depend upon prophecy ; 
their adherents believe in constant communications with 
the Deity; they are instructed and led by inspiration, 
comforted and sustained by visions, and feel a deep con- 
viction of supernatural guidance, which fills their souls 
with faith, the evidence of things not seen. The period 
of revelation has never been closed, or, if closed, has been 
reopened for them. Prophets still walk the earth ; per- 
sonal manifestations and incarnations of the Divinity 
still occur. Judaea is not the only country that has been 



THE KHLYSTI. 253 

blessed by the presence of the Son of God; there are 
Bethlehems on the hunks of the Volga and of the Oka, 
where new Christs have been born "to bring glad tidings 

of good things." 

" I am the God announced by the prophets, descended a 
second time upon earth for the salvation of mankind, and 
there is no other God but Me," is the first commandment 
of Daniel Philippovitch, the incarnate God of the Khlysti. 

In no other country, among no other civilized people, 
would such cynical blasphemies be listened to, much less 
reverently accepted ; and their success denotes a mental 
state as primitive, as credulous, and as expectant of di- 
vine revelation as was that of the Eastern world when 
Christ appeared. 

The two most important of the mystic sects, the 
" Khlysti " and the " Skoptsi," or the " Flagellants " and 
the " Eunuchs," are generally considered to be closely 
connected ; the latter to be, perhaps, an extension or a 
continuation of the former. 

The " Khlysti " are so called from khlyst, a whip, in 
allusion to the practice common among them of self- 
flagellation ; they take themselves the name of " Khrys- 
tovschina," or the " Community of Disciples of Christ," 
which, by a sarcastic play on words, is transformed into 
" Khlystovschina," or " Community of the Whip." The 
appellation they prefer is " Lioudi Bojii " — " Men of God," 
and they address each other as " brother " and " sister." 

The origin of the sect is uncertain ; it is supposed to 
have arisen about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and to have been introduced into Eussia by foreign 
traders. Some authorities give as its founder one Kull- 
mann, a disciple of Jacob Boehm. This visionary came 
to Russia as the apostle of a new revelation ; announced 
himself to be the Messiah, and preached the coming of 



254 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

the kingdom of the Holy Spirit. Accused and convicted 
of heresy, he was burned at the stake in 1689 at Moscow. 

The Khlysti themselves claim to be of national, and 
also of divine origin ; they have their traditions and a 
gospel, orally transmitted, for it is a principle of their 
creed, scrupulously observed, never to reduce their doc- 
trines to writing. When their God appeared on earth he 
cast aside the Scriptures and prohibited all written tes- 
timony, in order that his disciples might never be dis- 
turbed by conflicting statements, or by disputes and dif- 
ferences of opinion such as distract the Orthodox and the 
Old Believers ; by this precaution they hide the myste- 
ries of their faith and the secrets of their worship, and 
give to personal inspiration its widest, freest scope, un- 
fettered by any previously recorded revelation. 

According to their traditions, the true faith was re- 
vealed during the reign of Peter the Great by the Fa- 
ther Almighty, who descended from heaven in clouds of 
fire, upon Mount Gorodine, in the government of Vladi- 
mir, and was incarnate in the person of Daniel Philippo- 
vitch, a peasant of Kostroma, and a deserter from the 
army, to whom his adorers gave the appellation of the 
God " Sabaoth." 

By union with a woman a hundred years old, he be- 
gat a son named Ivan Timofeievitch Souslov, whom, be- 
fore reascending into heaven, he proclaimed to be the 
Christ. His followers called themselves the " worship- 
pers of the living God," and, like the Brahmins of India, 
who teach the constantly-recurring birth of Vishnu, they 
seem to have felt the need of a frequent re-apparition of 
the Divinity to keep alive the faith ; and they have had 
a procession of Christ s, succeeding one the other, by 
adoption or filiation, each reverenced as the living Sav 
iour, the representative of the first incarnation. 



THE KIILYSTI. 255 

Ivan Souslov, who was a serf of the Nariskyne fam- 
ily, chose twelve apostles, and with them preached the 
twelve commandments of his father, Sabaoth. He was 
arrested by the police, scourged, branded, and tortured 
without revealing the mysteries of his creed, and was 
crucified near the holy gate of the Kremlin ; buried on 
Friday, he rose again on the night of Saturday, and re- 
appeared among his disciples. The legend, so far drawn 
from the Biblical narrative, was not sufficient to satisfy 
the cravings of his followers for miracles ; and it goes 
on to relate that he was again seized and crucified, and 
his skin Hayed from his body ; that over the bloody and 
palpitating limbs a woman spread a sheet, which formed 
a new skin, and Christ, resuscitated again, lived many 
years on earth, and finally ascended into heaven to be 
joined with the Father. 

Every relic of their incarnate deities, the villages 
where they were born, the dwellings they inhabited, 
their places of burial before ascending on high, are held 
in special veneration. Although the Khlysti rejected 
marriage as unclean, an exception was made for the 
families of Daniel Philippovitch and Ivan Souslov, in 
order that the blood of the first Redeemer might not 
die out from among men. Towards the close of the 
reign of Nicholas there lived in the hamlet of Staroe, 
thirty versts from Kostroma, a woman named Ouliana 
Yassiliev, to whom they rendered divine honors, as the 
last lineal descendant of Philippovitch. To put an end 
to the pilgrimages and manifestations of which she was 
the object, the government placed her in an Orthodox 
convent, but the house she had occupied is still venerated 
as a holy shrine, as " God's house," and Staroe has be- 
come their Nazareth ; a well in the village furnishes the 
water used to make the bread for their communion, and 



256 THE RUSSIAN CHUKCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

is forwarded during winter in frozen blocks to their dif- 
ferent communities. 

The moral law of the twelve commandments issued 
by Philippovitch is rigid and austere ; the use of spirits, 
marriage, and presence at w^edding-feasts or similar fes- 
tivals, incontinency, theft, 1 and swearing, are forbidden ; 
brotherly love, belief in the Holy Ghost, and secrecy 
upon matters of faith are enjoined. 

It is not possible to ascribe the rapid increase of this 
sect to the silly legends related of its founders, or to any 
special influence of its moral code, which is in itself nei- 
ther new nor in any wise remarkable ; its success and 
popularity must rather be attributed to the doctrine of 
personal inspiration, which it persistently inculcated. 

Its adherents were taught to believe in the spirit as 
made manifest in themselves, to trust to the promptings 
of their own souls, to accept the effervescence of their 
own imaginations as evidence of the Holy Ghost work- 
ing within them ; added to this was the powerful stimu- 
lant of imposed secrecy ; the ignorant and credulous love 
the unknown, and the mysteries of the faith and worship 
were concealed from strangers with a jealous care, which 
excited wonder and curiosity. " Keep my precepts se- 
cret," says their dodecalogue ; " reveal them neither to fa- 
ther nor mother ; though thou be scourged with the knout, 
or burned with fire, suffer without opening thy mouth ;" 
and the proselyte, at his initiation, swears to preserve 
silence upon all he may see or hear, " without impatience 

1 The commandment forbidding theft, a very common weakness of 
the Russian peasant, is conveyed in figurative and singularly impres- 
sive language: " Thou shalt not steal: whoever shall have stolen even 
a kopeck shall bear it upon his head at the judgment day, and his sin 
shall not be forgiven him until the kopeck shall be melted in the flames 
of hell." A kopeck is a large copper coin, of less value than a cent. 



THE KHLYSTI. 257 

and without fear of the knout, of the stake, or of the 
sword." 

These injunctions to secrecy, common to all the mys- 
tical Beets, together with the absence of all written testi- 
mony, explain why the existence of these communities 
remained so long unknown, and why, when it was first 
suspected, so little could be ascertained regarding them ; 
the difficulty of detection was moreover enhanced by 
the fact that their disciples were ostensibly members 
of the established Church, and conformed strictly to its 
rites and regulations. 

As has been the case with other secret bodies, the 
Khlysti have been accused of immoral and licentious 
practices ; most probably, in recent days, these accusa- 
tions are not unfounded, but when reprehensible ex- 
cesses exist they are an incidental, not a necessary, con- 
sequence of their teachings, and may not be adduced as 
the attraction to which is due the rapid extension of the 
sect. In meetings of mystic enthusiasts there are always 
appeals to sensuous excitement, and appearances are often 
deceitful; similar suspicions were aroused against the 
agapoe of the early Christians. Exuberance of language 
and gesture, ardent and voluptuous expressions, tender 
and affectionate imagery, are resorted to, often invol- 
untarily, as a means of quickening mental perceptions, 
kindling the imagination, and awakening the soul to 
holy ecstasy; even when the bounds of decency are 
passed it is with ulterior purpose, and not as an end. 

Many of these Kussian sectaries have, like their proto- 
types of old, or their modern Anglo-Saxon brethren, 
adopted violent and continuous corporal exercise as a 
part of their ritual. Dancing in some form, as well as 
singing, is an habitual ceremony. With the Khlysti a 
whirling rotatory movement, similar to that of Mahom- 
17 



258 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

etan dervishes, or of American Shakers, is practised. The 
meeting is opened with hymns and invocations to the 
God Sabaoth and to the Christ Ivan ; after which the chief 
elder reads from Acts the words of the prophet Joel : 
" And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, 
I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons 
and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men 
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams " 
(Acts ii., 17). Then follows a spectacle, such as may be 
seen among the dervishes of the East ; the hearers com- 
mence the sacred dance, at first in solemn measure, turn- 
ing in slow cadence, then with quickly increasing rapid- 
ity, until the whole congregation is revolving round in 
a bewildering, giddy maze; men and women, old and 
young, in transports of contagious frenzy, are borne 
away in the crazy whirl with frantic distortions and 
gesticulations to imitate the flutter of an angel's wings, 
and lost to all sense of time or place. Each follows his 
own fancy, according to the devotional inspiration of the 
moment ; one, seized with convulsive trembling, stands 
rooted to the spot in ecstatic rapture ; another, with wild 
cries and sobs, stamps and bounds in the air ; one goes 
whizzing round the room in a furious waltz; another 
spins upon his heels like a teetotum, with arms extend- 
ed and closed eyes, rapt in inward contemplation ; the 
veteran performers are so skilled in this holy exercise 
and gyrate with such rapidity that they seem more like 
whirling phantoms than human beings; their long 
dresses swell out around them, their hair stands erect, 
they are dead to all surroundings, and spin and twist 
and twirl until they fall exhausted, almost insensible, 
breathing out broken sighs and unintelligible exclama- 
tions from their parched and panting lips. Their faint- 
ness and the perspiration pouring from their bodies they 



MYSTICISM IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY. 259 

liken to the agony and bloody sweat of Christ in the 
garden of Gethsemane. These religious dances are 
provocative of intense sensual enjoyment ; they act upon 
the nervous system like strong liquors or narcotics, and 
intoxicate like opium or hashish. The Klilysti call them 
their spiritual beer, " doukhovnoe pivo," and frequently 
stimulate their effect by scourging with rods ; hence the 
name applied to the sect. 

The crisis of supreme exaltation is the moment for 
prophesying ; half-uttered phrases, frantic ejaculations, 
incoherent words, are accepted as revelations from on 
high, transmitted through their unconscious means, and 
if the message is incomprehensible, it is said to be in 
unknown tongues, which the elder may interpret at his 
pleasure. 

The Easkol has, since the days of Peter the Great, 
been confined almost exclusively to the lower orders, but 
of these mystical sects some have penetrated into high 
places. Imperial ukases and official records show that 
their adepts were, in the eighteenth century, found at 
court in princely families, among foreigners of distinc- 
tion and ecclesiastics of exalted rank, as well as among 
native Kussians and laymen. Similar occurrences took 
place during the reigns of Alexander I. and of Nicholas. 
In 1817 a secret society of mystics was detected in the 
imperial palace of Michael, at St. Petersburg ; it was dis- 
persed by the police, and a few years later was again 
surprised in a neighboring suburb. Officers of the em- 
peror's household, functionaries of high rank, both men 
and women, were among its members, all solemnly 
pledged to secrecy and possessed of the spirit of proph- 
ecy. To arouse the prophetic inspiration they had re- 
course to the whirling dance and scourging of the 
Khlysti ; brotherly love, mystic union of the sexes, spir- 



260 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

itual marriage, and the inward presence of the Holy 
Ghost were their favorite topics of discussion. 

It is worthy of remark that their doctrines, although 
eminently hostile to the Christian religion, were received 
with especial favor by monks and nuns, and by the peas- 
antry belonging to monasteries. This singular circum- 
stance has been attributed to the antagonism existing 
between the lower and the upper clergy, and considered 
a species of protestation on the part of the inferior or- 
ders against the domineering and corruption laid to the 
charge of their superior brethren. Beligious communities, 
as, for instance, the convent of the Dyevitchi, at Moscow, 
were infested with these heresies ; in Orthodox churches 
their leaders, dying apparently in the odor of sanctity, 
were entombed in holy ground, and pilgrims worshipped 
at shrines polluted by their remains. To check this 
scandal and desecration, when it was discovered, their 
graves were opened and cleansed and their bodies com- 
mitted to the flames. 

Russian society of this period, weary of Voltairian scep- 
ticism and encyclopedic materialism, agitated by vague 
devotional aspirations, was awakening to the seductions 
of a spiritualistic faith. Philosophic theories, mystical 
ideas, inspired by Cagliostro, St. Germain, and Mesmer ; 
Freemasonry, with its secret mysteries ; religious Cath- 
olic influences, diffused by Joseph de Maistre and the 
Jesuits, were mingling and commingling, working to- 
gether in mutual action and reaction. Circumstances 
were propitious for the reception, even in polished cir- 
cles, of the dreamy, fanciful illuminism of earnest enthu- 
siasts, although of low and vulgar origin. It was, how- 
ever, but the fashion of the moment, and, speedily for- 
gotten, fell back into the depths from which it sprang. 
There, by contact with the gross ignorance and sensual 



THE SIIAKOUNI, OR JUMPERS. 261 

proclivities of the people, it rapidly became materialized 
and polluted by all the aberrations naturally resulting 
from unrestrained exercise of personal inspiration. 

Apostles of asceticism, chastity, and self-denial were 
succeeded by demagogues preaching and practising self- 
indulgence and license. Pure spirituality could not suf- 
fice, abstract morality had no meaning, aroused no en- 
thusiasm ; sensual gratification was more alluring than 
mere pleasures of the imagination. Carnal appetites 
were appealed to, and their satisfaction encouraged, as a 
prelude and excitement to the ecstatic trance. Em- 
braces, kisses, and the intercourse of the sexes became, 
among the mystics, as among barbarous tribes of old, a 
part of their religious service ; the sacred names of char- 
ity and love were prostrated to ignoble use. 

An offshoot of the Khlysti, known as the " Shakouni," 
or " Jumpers," openly professed debauchery and liber- 
tinism to excess, as an efficient means of conquering the 
flesh by exhaustion and satiety, and of hastening the 
moment of prophetic revelation. 

This branch sect, which was detected at St. Petersburg 
during the reign of Alexander I., differs from its parent 
stock in the style of gymnastics adopted by its members, 
but also and especially in the abominable obscenities it 
preaches and practices as a religious duty. It is sup- 
posed to be of foreign origin, having been introduced 
into Kussia from the Finnish provinces. Whatever may 
have been the intentions of its founders, it has degen- 
erated into a secret society for the encouragement of 
vice and sensual indulgence. 

Instead of a rotary motion, its exercise consists in 
leaping, springing from the ground in successive bounds, 
and hence the name applied to its adherents. They 
meet secretly at night, the leader chants the prayers, 



262 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

commencing in a low, monotonous tone, gradually in- 
creasing in rapidity and loudness, and, with the grow- 
ing excitement of his hearers, he begins a slow jump- 
ing movement, modulated on his song, and becoming 
more and more violent as his voice rises higher and the 
chanting quickens ; the audience, arranged in couples, en- 
gaged to each other in advance, imitate his example and 
join the strain ; the bounds and the singing grow faster 
and louder as the frenzy spreads, until, at its height, 
the elder shouts that he hears the voices of angels ; the 
lights are extinguished, the jumping ceases, and the 
scene that follows in the darkness defies description. 
Each one yields to his desires, born of inspiration, and 
therefore righteous, and to be gratified ; all are brethren 
in Christ, all promptings of the inner spirit are holy ; in- 
cest, even, is no sin. They repudiate marriage, and jus- 
tify their abominations by the Biblical legends of Lot's 
daughters, Solomon's harem, and the like. Other of their 
rites are abject and disgusting ; their chief is the living 
Christ, and their communion consists in embracing his 
body ; ordinary disciples may kiss his hand or foot ; to 
those of more fervent piety he offers his tongue ! 

These fanatics are vigorously pursued by the police, 
their meetings are dispersed, men are imprisoned and 
women confined in houses of correction, but, notwith- 
standing, they have spread from the capital to cities of 
the interior ; their performances in their different com- 
munities have varied, but have been always of the same 
licentious nature. 

At Eiazan a prophetess assumed the title of " Mother 
of God ;" chosen adepts performed the sacred dance in 
couples before her with blasphemous obscenities too hor- 
rible to name, while she exhorted them in the words ad- 
dressed to the wise virgins whose lamps were trimmed ; 



INFLUENCE OF KELIGIOUS EXALTATION. 2G3 

and the congregation around repeated the sign of the 
cross and bowed in prayer. 

At Smolensk they danced naked, and the people, in 
derision, nicknamed them u Cupids." All mystical and 
religious symbolism disappeared, and their meetings are 
simply disgusting orgies. 

To the erotic and libidinous rites of these and similar 
sects were sometimes joined cruel and bloody ceremonies, 
which arc relics of ancient paganism, preserved in popu- 
lar tradition. SuiFering and death, as well as volupt- 
uousness and sensuality, the mysteries of the grave like 
the wonderful reproduction of life, appeal strongly to 
the Imagination of a simple, childishly ignorant, and 
credulous race. 

Human sacrifices and a species of devout cannibalism, 
exalted to religious significance, are alleged against some 
of these crazed fanatics. It is said they baptize and slay 
an infant born of an unmarried woman, and commune with 
its heart and blood, mixed with honey, as emblematic of 
the blood of the Lamb j 1 and that on Easter night, when 
they celebrate the worship of the Mother of God, they cut 
out pieces from the breast of a young girl, and share the 
morsels among them, w r hile they sing and dance around 
her. The victim, who is persuaded by promises of glory 
in the life to come and honor in this world, to offer up 
herself a living sacrifice, is ever afterwards held as holy. 2 
Ferocious and savage practices of this nature are totally 
at variance w T ith the naturally mild and kindly character 
of the Russian peasant ; but under the influence of re- 
ligious exaltation he is transformed into a wild beast, 
reckless of consequences ; ready in the past for murder 

1 Archbishop Philaret, "History of the Russian Church." 

2 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 253. 



264 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

or for self-immolation, as his frenzy might dictate, and 
capable at the present day of excesses as brutal and as 
extraordinary. 

In no other country has a moral and religious system 
ever been based upon deliberate and degrading mutila- 
tion of the body. It were vain to seek a parallel during 
the darkest days of paganism, or in the most carefully 
hidden mysteries of Grecian mythology. Enthusiasts, 
like Origen, may have sacrificed their manhood in order 
to secure tranquillity of mind and perfect freedom of 
thought, but neither the priests of heathen deities nor 
Christian fanatics have ever raised the act to the height 
of a moral obligation, or endeavored to found upon it a 
creed and a religion. This has been reserved for Eussian 
zealots. 

The severity of the early fathers in whatever related 
to the connection of the sexes sprang from abhorrence 
of any enjoyment which might gratify the sensual, and 
degrade the spiritual, nature of man. They averred that 
if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator he 
would have lived a life of virgin purity, and, by some 
harmless mode of vegetation, Paradise would have been 
peopled with a race of innocent and immortal beings ; x 
but they preached sobriety and continence, not mutila- 
tion. The " Skoptsi," or the " Eunuchs," with the inex- 
orable logic of the Eussian peasant, push their reasoning 
further. 

Emasculation is, according to them, simply the most 
radical and effective form of asceticism, as it removes 
all incentive to indulgence, and therefore it should be 
practised. The surest way of attaining the holy gift of 
prophecy, and of being at one with God, is to free the 

1 Gibbon, vol. ii., p. 323. 



THE SKOPTSI, OR EUNUCHS. 2G5 

soul from the influence of the senses, and, by destroying 
the carnal appetites, to make the mind independent of 
the body; this they inculcate as a solemn obligation. 
They teach that man should be like the angels, without 
sex and without desire. Their poetry and hymns are 
filled with allusions to this ideal excellence. They call 
themselves the " White Doves," " Belye Goloubi ;" the 
" Holy Ones," the "Pure and Saintly" in a world of 
sinners ; the " Virgins," who follow the Lamb whither- 
soever he gocth (Rev. xiv., 4). 

Marriage and the relations of the sexes have in Russia 
given rise to the most contradictory opinions, with dia- 
metrically opposite results — unbridled license and en- 
forced continency by mutilation. 

The Skoptsi, on this question, agree with the most rad- 
ical sects of the Raskol, and resemble them also in some 
other particulars, and in the tendencies of the doctrines 
they profess. Like the Feodocians and the Stranniki, 
they disregard consequences, and push their logical de- 
ductions, without faltering, to the end. They manifest 
the realism inherent to the Russian character, and, with 
it, the reverence for the letter of the law which distin- 
guishes the Old Believer; they materialize asceticism, 
reducing it to a surgical operation, and giving a literal 
interpretation to scriptural injunctions. They lay great 
stress on the Saviours commands : " If thy hand or thy 
foot offend thee, cut them off ;" and, " if thine eye offend 
thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee " (Matt, xviii., 8, 
9). They base their peculiar tenet on Christ's saying : 
" There are some eunuchs which were so born from their 
mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were 
made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have 
made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's 
sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it " 



266 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

(Matt, xix., 12). They believe in the millennium, and 
rely upon the prophecies and upon the Apocalypse for 
their authority. 

For the consummation of their self -consecrating sacri- 
fice, the " baptism of fire," they prefer that men should 
wait until they have passed the age of puberty; they 
are then capable of judging for themselves, and the oper- 
ation, being then more dangerous to health, implies great- 
er devotion ; it is rarely inflicted on children. The mu- 
tilation may be complete or partial, and is designated, 
accordingly, either as the " Koyal Seal," " Tsarskaia 
Petchat," or as the "Second pureness," " Vtoraia Tchis- 
tota." It is not obligatory upon women, although many 
voluntarily submit to it ; for them the usual ceremony 
consists in deforming, or destroying the breasts. 

While they repudiate marriage in principle, they do 
not, in the interest of their sect, ignore it altogether. 
Some among them, believing that they only are the elect 
of God and depositaries of the true faith, deem them- 
selves authorized by a higher law to transgress this pre- 
cept, in order to provide for the transmission of their 
doctrines ; they delay the final sacrificial rite until they 
have begotten children, whom they train up in their be- 
lief and in expectation of its penalty. A son of theirs, 
who, arriving at manhood, should rebel, and endeavor to 
escape his fate, becomes a renegade and a traitor against 
whom every hand is raised, and whose life is in jeopardy. 

They are zealous propagators of their creed, in order 
to attain, as speedily as possible, the full number of one 
hundred and forty-four thousand " of them which are 
sealed " (Eev. viii., 4), when they expect the Messiah will 
come to establish his kingdom, and give the empire of 
the world to his saints. 

This heresy, which is the most modern of all, probably 



THE SKOPTSI, OR EUNUCHS. 207 

owes its origin to influences from the East, slowly filter- 
ing through the lower ranks of the population. It made 
its appearance as a distinct sect at St. Petersburg about 
177o, the year of the plague at Moscow. Its founder, 
Andrei Selivanov, died, a centenarian, in 1832 ; his fol- 
lowers worship him as the incarnation of the Son of God. 
Their religious belief and their practices resemble those 
of the Khlysti, from whom they sprang, and are either 
an exaggeration of the doctrines of the parent sect, or 
the result of an attempt at reform ; an ascetic reaction 
against the license and sensuality into which the votaries 
of Souslov had fallen. 

The " White Doves," like the " Men of God," base 
their religious system upon personal inspiration and 
prophecy, and rely in a similar manner upon bodily ex- 
haustion, caused by violent exertion, to produce the holy 
trance. At their meetings, which they call " Radenie," 
" Zeal," or " Earnestness," held in the evening or at early 
dawn, the disciples, clad in long linen robes, girded about 
the loins with girdles of peculiar make, worship their 
Lord seated upon a throne, and listen to the revelations 
of those whom the Spirit moves. 

Proscribed and pursued by the police, they avoid de- 
tection by maintaining their membership of the Or- 
thodox Church, and scrupulously conforming to its or- 
dinances. 

The peculiar rite enjoined by their creed is not merely 
an act of asceticism ; it has a symbolic sense also, and is 
based upon a singular interpretation, not, however, orig- 
inating with them, of the fall of Adam and Eve. They 
aver that the carnal union of our first parents was the 
original sin, which must be atoned for by mutilation ; 
they acclaimed Selivanov as the Eedeemer, and his emas- 
culation as the scriptural atonement, in which all who 



268 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

would be saved must participate. While they rejected 
Jesus as the Saviour of mankind, and deny the efficacy 
of His death upon the cross, they recognize Him and His 
apostles as precursors of Selivanov, and assert that mu- 
tilation was taught by them in secret. This doctrine 
was the hidden Eleusinian mystery of Christ's teachings ; 
as in time it became corrupt, or was forgotten, the re- 
demption of the world demanded a new Saviour to preach 
and practice the true Gospel in all its purity and might, 
and the Son of God became again incarnate in the per- 
son of their prophet. 

This impostor appeared during the reign of Catherine 
II. ; of his previous history and antecedents nothing pos- 
itive is known ; he was ignorant and illiterate, unable to 
read or write, and was probably a peasant who had es- 
caped military conscription by taking refuge with the 
Khlysti, among whom he became prominent. An aged 
prophetess, Akoulina Ivanovna, who presided over one 
of their communities, recognized him by inspiration, and 
proclaimed him to be the Son of God ; his followers rap- 
idly increased, and attracted suspicion ; he was arrested, 
knouted, and exiled to Siberia, from whence he was al- 
lowed to return by Paul I. Besides his divine character, 
he assumed that of temporal lord, and like the Easkolnik 
Pougatchev, claimed to be Peter III., who had not been 
put to death, as supposed, but had escaped to Irkutsk, 
and a soldier had suffered in his place. Selivanov de- 
clared that Peter was the incarnation of Christ, who had 
never died, but was immortal, and wandered over the 
world, variously and at various times, manifest in the 
flesh, without sex, consecrated by God ; the fulfilment 
of divine grace (" ispolnen blagodati "), speaking by inspi- 
ration ; the Son of God, but not God ; revealed in due 
season by the Father to His true children, and who now 



THE SKOPTSI, OR EUNUCHS. 2G9 

appeared again incarnate in his own person as Christ and 
Tsar. 1 

The history of Russia is full of similar impostures, 
which have always found ready acceptance among a 
people credulous and excitable, greedy for the marvel- 
lous, and ever wildly dreaming, in their degradation and 
misery, of a deliverer to come. 

Selivanov doubtless thought to strengthen his spirit- 
ual pretensions by claiming to be the true " White Tsar," 
and his disciples, in their worship, addressed him as 
" King of Kings and Lord of Lords" (Rev. xix., 16). 

According to the Skoptsi, Paul was curious to see the 
man who pretended to be his father, and recalled him 
from Siberia for that purpose, but his return was not 
triumphant ; he was confined as a lunatic in an insane 
asylum, and recovered his liberty only under Alexander 
I., at the intercession of a Polish noble, Elinski, who, with 
a few others in high position, was, in secret, a convert to 
his creed. 

For eighteen years longer, favored by the singular 
moral state of Russian society at that period, and pro- 
tected by the influence of wealthy partisans, he lived at 
St. Petersburg, sedulously laboring to spread his doc- 
trines, and worshipped by his patrons as God and Tsar. 
Finally, in 1820, he was confined in the monastery of 
Souzdal, where, imbecile from old age, he died in 1832. 

The Skoptsi do not admit his death, but declare that 
he still lives in the depths of Siberia, whence he will 
come, at the appointed time, to establish the kingdom of 
righteousness. Some of them believe that Xapoleon will 
marshal the angelic hosts who will surround their lead- 
er and will share his triumph. Kapoleon's fame has left 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 249. 



270 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

an indelible impression upon the Russian popular mind, 
and there are sects, obscure and little known, akin to the 
larger mystic bodies, still convinced that he was the true 
Messiah, who is to come again, and which worship be- 
fore his image. His memory, and that of Peter III., 
who is confounded with Selivanov, are held in profound 
reverence by the Skoptsi, and portraits of the three re- 
place among them the holy pictures of the Orthodox. 
They have other typical emblems of their faith, and 
chief among them are representations of King David 
dancing before the ark, and of the crucifixion, with the 
figure of a monk upon the cross instead of that of the 
Saviour. 

Notwithstanding their precautions, the Skoptsi are be- 
trayed by their pale, sallow complexion, their scanty 
beard, shrill voice, effeminate, peculiar gait, and hesitat- 
ing, wavering look. They are numerous among the 
money-changers of the large towns ; like the Jews, they 
have a marked predilection for pursuits that involve the 
handling of coin. Their probity and their financial skill 
are universally recognized ; they possess, in a high de- 
gree, the practical spirit of the Great Russian, and the 
mercantile instincts of the Easkolnik ; their eagerness for 
gain, and their success in its acquisition, are proverbial. 
To amass wealth is their engrossing preoccupation ; sev- 
ered from family ties and affections, passionless, not 
tempted as other men are, old before their time, they 
devote a life-long energy to the accumulation of prop- 
erty with keen, calculating, systematic perseverance. 
They are untiring in the propagation of their belief, and 
the lavish expenditure of the wealth they delight in ac- 
quiring accounts for the wide diffusion of their repulsive 
doctrines. 

Imprisonment and exile are insufficient to repress their 



THE SKOITSI, OR EUNUCHS. 271 

proselyting zeal ; they have been forced into the army ; 
whole regiments have been formed of their adherents, 

and sent to garrison frontier posts; entire communities 
have been transported to the ( 'aueasus and to Siberia, or 
driven to seek refuge beyond the border; but they re- 
main steadfast in their faith, and ardent in their mission- 
ary labors, patiently awaiting the reappearance of their 
Lord and King, and their numbers increase rather than 
diminish. Although no longer molested, if they refrain 
from active propagation of their doctrines, they are under 
strict police supervision ; their condition is inscribed on 
their passports, and all who lodge or employ them must 
notify the authorities. 

It is a remarkable anomaly that the partisans of these 
unnatural and revolting practices are usually, in the or- 
dinary avocations of life, the most respectable and hon- 
est of men. 1 They are frugal, sober, and industrious ; 
they avoid meat and fish ; use neither spirits nor tobac- 
co ; and the flesh of a white lamb, with bread made of 
white flour, consecrated by lying in the grave of one of 
their saints, serves for the communion feast, which they 
celebrate on the first day of Easter, their only festival. 
Their religious services are conducted with propriety 
and decorum; chaste and simple hymns are sung, of 
which the following, quoted by Ilaxthausen, is an exam- 
ple: 

"Hold fast ye mariners ! 

Let not the ship perish in the storm! 

The Holy Spirit is with us ! 

Fear not the breakers ! fear not the storm ! 

Our Father and Christ is with us ! 

His mother Akoulina Ivanovna is with us ! 

He will come ! He will appear ! 

1 W. H. Dixon, "Free Russia," p. HO. 



272 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

He "will sound the great bell of the Uspenski. 1 

He will collect all the true believers together I 

He will plant masts that will not fail! 

He will set sails that will not rend ! 

He will give us a rudder that will steer us safely! 

He casts his anchor in a safe harbor! 

We are landed! we are landed! 

The Holy Spirit is with us ! 

The Holy Spirit is among us ! 

The Holy Spirit is in us 1" 2 

This nautical phraseology is explained by the system 
of their organization, arranged with the remarkable apt- 
itude for self-government displayed by Eussian schismat- 
ics, from the " Old Believers " to the " Men of God" and 
the " White Doves." 

They form themselves into " korabl," which may sig- 
nify either " ships " or " naves of a church," and their 
confederation recalls that of Free -Masonry with its 
lodges ; this latter institution was introduced into Eussia 
at about the period of Selivanov's appearance. 3 

Each korabl comprises the disciples of a city, a town, 
or a district, and is under the charge of a prophet or 
prophetess, whose inspired revelations are its law and 
guide. That of St. Petersburg, ruled over by Selivanov 
in person, was, in their mystic language, the Eoyal Ship, 
having for its pilot and commander the living God, who 
directed the evolutions of the squadron of smaller ves- 
sels. 

1 The "Uspenski Sabor," or Great Cathedral of the Assumption, at 
Moscow. Uspenie, the Assumption. 

2 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 249. 

3 Free-Masonry, founded in Russia by Schwartz and Novikov, was 
widely extended, and had considerable influence during the reigns of 
Catherine II., Paul I., and Alexander I. All secret societies, and Free- 
Masonry with them, were abolished by Nicholas in consequence of 
their connection with the insurrectionary movement of 1825. 



NATIONALISTIC SECTS. 273 

The Skoptsi still form a close corporation with secret 
signs of recognition, one of which is said to be a red 
handkerchief spread over the knees, and which they strike 
with the right hand. This distinguishing mark is fre- 
quently seen in their portraits of Peter III. and of Seli- 
vanov. ' 

The Khlysti and the Skoptsi, with their various affilia- 
tions, can scarcely be termed Christian denominations, 
or even heresies, properly speaking; they are parodies 
of Christianity, with their special saving deities, their 
own dogmas and systems of morality, reproducing and 
exaggerating the heterogeneous teachings of the ancient 
Gnostic creeds. 

In opposition to these mystic sects are the communi- 
ties animated by advanced ideas and liberal tendencies, 
similar to those developed in modern times, among civil- 
ized nations. 

In endeavoring to escape from the superstitions and 
trammels of ritualism, the Russian peasant has not been 
swayed solely by mystical symbolism, dreams, and chi- 
meras ; he has also felt the influence of intelligent re- 
flection, and, by the exercise of his sober reasoning fac- 
ulties, has evolved doctrines and beliefs of a highly phil- 
osophic and rationalistic nature. 

The reformatory, Protestant aspirations of the Eus- 
sian mind are exhibited in two sects of similar tenden- 
cies, connected together by the character of the creeds 
they profess, as also in their historic development, and 
each having many divisions and ramifications. 

They are the " Doukkobortsi," 2 or " Champions of the 
Holy Spirit," and the " Molokani," 3 or " Milk Drinkers." 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 251. 

5 From doukh, spirit, and boreta, a wrestler or champion. 
3 From moloko, milk. 
IS 



274 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

The latter are probably so named because they refuse 
to keep the Lenten fasts, and partake freely of milk, and 
of food prepared from milk, on the days when its use is 
prohibited by the Orthodox Church; this designation, 
which is contemptuously applied to them, is also sup- 
posed to be derived from the name of the Molotchnaya, 
the Milky Stream, a river of the south of Eussia, so 
called from the chalky white color of its waters, along 
the banks of which their first and principal communities 
were originally established. 

The adherents of both these sects are distinguished for 
their utter disregard of all ritual, and of the traditionary 
religious festivals, fasts, and forms of which the Eussian 
people generally are scrupulously observant. The lines 
of demarkation between them are not strictly drawn, 
and their members pass frequently from one to the oth- 
er. They call themselves " Istinie Khristiane," " True " 
or " Spiritual Christians," and reject all external practices 
and ceremonies, as being, in their nature, materialistic 
and idolatrous. 

The Doukhobortsi reject the sacraments, the Molokani 
receive them only in their spiritual sense. They both 
appeal to reason and to conscience as against the formal- 
ism and superstitions of the Orthodox and of the Easkol- 
nik, empty sources of endless and vain disputes. " The 
Easknolnik," they say, " will die a martyr for the right 
to make the sign of the cross with two fingers ; we do 
not cross ourselves at all, either with two or with three 
fingers; we strive to attain to a better knowledge of 
God." 

The Molokani, like the Bezpopovtsi, recognize no priest- 
hood, but for a different reason ; not because the Church 
has lost its sacerdotal power, but because, in the true 
Church, there is no need of a clergy. What the " No 



THE MOLOKANI. 275 

Priest " deplores as a calamity, they acclaim as righteous 
doctrine. According to their belief there is no bishop, 
no pontiff, no master save Christ ; their elders, who read 
and expound the Word, are appointed by themselves, as 
God-fearing men, whom they choose as directed by the 
apostle Peter, and who have no priestly character nor 
authority, and wear no special garb. 

" God is ;i Spirit, and they that worship Him must wor- 
ship Him in spirit and in truth" (John iv., 24) ; this is the 
fundamental maxim of their creed, which they apply and 
follow r out with the inflexible logic of the Russian peas- 
ant. All ceremonious observances during prayer, the 
repeated cross-signing, the "pokloni," or genuflexions 
and prostrations, dear to the heart of the Raskolnik and 
the Orthodox, they abstain from ; the holy images, which 
all, save the most fanatic of the Bezpopovtsi, worship 
and revere, they deny as useless, unmeaning symbols. 
" God is a Spirit," they repeat, "and images are but 
idols. A picture is not Christ ; it is but a bit of painted 
board. We believe in Christ, not a Christ of brass, nor 
of silver, nor of gold, the work of men's hands, but in 
Christ, the Son of God, Saviour of the world." 

Their idea of a Church is according to the words of 
Christ : " Where two or three are gathered together in 
My name, there am I in the midst of them." They have 
no sacred edifices. " Solomon built himself a house, but 
the Almighty dw r ells not in temples made by the hands 
of men ;" " the heart of man is God's only temple." ' 

Their services are simple and plain ; they meet at each 
other's houses to listen to the Scriptures, repeat the Lord's 
Prayer, and sing Psalms. 

They acknowledge the sacraments only in their spirit- 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 283. 



276 TH E RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

ual sense ; while they meet and break bread together on 
the anniversary of the Last Supper, they do so in com- 
memoration of the event, and attach no religious or mys- 
terious significance to the act. " The true communion 
of the body and blood of Christ is," they say, " to read 
and meditate upon His Word ; all else is vanity." 

Of baptism they declare : " We understand, not the 
earthly water, but the spiritual cleansing of our souls 
from sin in faith, and the destruction of the old Adam 
within us, with all his works." 

Of confession : " We hold by Paul ; confess your sins 
one to another, and pray for one another ; any thing fur- 
ther we do not allow." 

Regarding prayers for the dead, they are silent. 

These statements are taken from confessions of faith, 
drawn up, not for their own use, but for their justification 
with the government, and may be liable to suspicion in 
some particulars, but they are corroborated by what can 
be ascertained of their practices. The conclusion of 
their profession is thoroughly Protestant in its character. 
" Besides the Holy Sacraments, we accept the Word of 
God and inward faith as our guides. We do not con- 
sider ourselves as not sinful, nor as holy, but work out 
our own salvation with fear and trembling, in the hope 
of attaining it solely, and alone, through belief in Jesus 
Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and the fulfilment 
of the commands of the Lord ; we have no power of our- 
selves to effect this, but obtain it only through living 
faith in our Intercessor and Redeemer, Jesus Christ." * 

The origin of these rationalistic sects is obscure. Kall- 
mann was burned at Moscow, in 1689, for teaching the 
philosophy of his master, Jacob Boehm; Procopius 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 284. 



THE MOLOKANI AND DOUKIIOBORTSI. 277 

Lupkin was condemned, in 1710, for asserting that the 
Church had lost the true spirit of Christianity, and that 
he had been appointed to set it right; Dimitri Tvuii- 
tenev was convicted of spreading Calvinistic ideas, by a 
synod, in 1714. These various doctrines may have aid- 
ed the development of new opinions, but the Molokani 
themselves pretend to date from the sixteenth century, 
when, in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, an English phy- 
sician introduced among Muscovite friends the reading 
and study of the Bible. The seed fell on fertile soil, 
and from it sprang a reformation more radical in its 
principles than that of Luther and Calvin ; a Protestant- 
ism of the most advanced type, rigid, rational, and unita- 
rian, recognizing God as supreme, and His Word only 
as law, but withholding from Christ the full attributes 
of the Deity, and considering the Holy Ghost as simply 
a manifestation of Divine Grace. 

These ignorant peasants, in reasoning out their faith, 
seem instinctively to have arrived at conclusions regard- 
ing the unity of the Godhead similar to the belief of 
Locke and Channing in later days. 

The Doukhobortsi evince more of the Oriental spirit, 
and were, perhaps, somewhat influenced by the Bogomile 
heresies of the Middle Ages, some hints of which may 
have permeated into Eussia with the Bulgarian colonies 
which settled in the neighborhood of Kiev prior to the 
thirteenth century, during the wars between the French 
empire of Constantinople, the Hungarians, and the Turks/ 

1 The Bogomiles were followers of a Bulgarian doctor named Basil, 
who rejected the Old Testament and most of the New; denied the res- 
urrection of Christ and the mj T steries of the Catholic faith, the sacra- 
ments, the necessity of a Church or a priesthood, prohibited marriage, and 
preached community of goods and of women, and utter reliance on the 
infinite mercy of God. The name of the sect is derived from the Sla- 



27S THE RUSSIAN CHUECH AND EUSSIAN DISSENT. 

The doctrines of the Molokani are more sober and 
practical, more positive and rational, while those of the 
Doukhobortsi have a strong tinge of mysticism and nat- 
uralism. 

The broad principles which guide both these bodies of 
sectaries may be readily discerned, but the exact nature 
of their opinions, especially as regards the Doukhobortsi, 
is more difficult to comprehend. They are, for the most 
part, peasants, with little or no education, and in their 
own minds, doubtless, their belief does not assume the 
form of a complete or perfectly defined system of the- 
ology. 

The Milk Drinkers base all religion upon the Bible. 
The Champions of the Spirit treat the Inspired Book 
with less respect, and look beyond its teachings ; they 
aver that Christ preferred the spoken to the written 
word, and that every man is a gospel unto himself ; " the 
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life " (2 Cor. iii. 6), 
and they consequently pay less attention to the strict 
construction of the Scriptures; most of the Christian 
traditions and dogmas they either reject entirely or un- 
derstand in a symbolic sense ; they also reject a priest- 
hood, but they go beyond the Milk Drinkers in ascrib- 
ing divine powers to their leader, whom they acclaim as 
Christ. They seem to have vaguely forestalled Hegel's 
method of interpreting the sacred mysteries, and do not 
consider the incarnation as an isolated, solitary fact in 
human history, but as an ever-recurring miracle in the 
lif e of every Christian ; in each one Christ lives, teaches, 
suffers, and is resuscitated, and the consequences which 
they drew from this allegorical method of explanation 

vonic words "Bogh" ("God") and "Milotti" ("have pity upon 
me "). Easil was condemned by a council at Constantinople, in 1118, 
and burned at the stake. 



THE MOLOKANI AND DOUKIIOBORTSI. 279 

inclined them to belief in metempsychosis. This doctrine 
of an ever-renewing presence of the Saviour was seized 
upon and advocated to his own advantage by Kapous- 
tine, the most distinguished of their leaders, a man of 
genius, originality, and eloquence, who ruled like a 
prophet of old in Israel. He taught that Christ is born 
again in every believer, that God is in every one. When 
God descended into Jesus, as Christ, He chose Him be- 
cause Jesus' soul was the purest and most perfect of hu- 
man souls, and being favored by God above all human 
souls, it had, from generation to generation, animated new 
bodies, always retaining, by God's will, a remembrance 
of its former condition, and every man in whom it re- 
sided was conscious that Jesus' soul was within him. In 
the early days it lived in the persons of the popes and 
heads of the Church, who were, for this reason, univer- 
sally acknowledged, but later the Church fell into error, 
and this divinely appointed chief was thrust aside by 
human passions and ambition ; his place usurped, he 
wandered away, unrecognized by all save a chosen lew, 
but always existing. " Thus," said he, " Sylvan Kolisni- 
kov, whom the older among you knew, was Jesus, but 
now, as truly as the heaven is above me and the earth 
under my feet, I am the true Jesus Christ your Lord !" 
and his followers fell down and worshipped him. 

He introduced among them the principle of commu- 
nity of goods, and under his firm and sagacious direction 
they rapidly increased in numbers and prosperity, their 
villages along the Molotchnaya river were named after 
the Christian virtues, as Terpenie (Patience), Bogdanov- 
ka (The Gift of God), Troitchatka (The Trinity), Novos- 
passkaya (The New Salvation), etc. ; in 1S33 they counted 
about four thousand inhabitants. 1 A small number 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 289. 



280 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

among them, called " Obstchii," or " Communists," car- 
ried their theories to extremes, and advocated commu- 
nity of women, as well as of property, but their views 
were never generally accepted. 

Like the Quakers and Moravians, both the Molokani 
and the Doukhobortsi are strongly prejudiced against 
all oaths and against military service. War is utterly 
opposed to their ideas of charity and brotherly love. 
The radical nature of their religious belief influences 
their opinions on social and political questions, and as 
their inclinations are democratic, even communistic, they 
have been accused of preaching resistance to all author- 
ity, temporal as well as spiritual, and of giving refuge in 
their villages to criminals and fugitives from justice ; but 
while this is an exaggeration, socialistic opinions have 
aroused among them a general expectation of the millen- 
nium. They have dreams of a regenerated world, of an 
" empire of Ararat," soon to come, when peace and right- 
eousness shall prevail. Although they passively submit 
to the present order of things, they do not sympathize 
with it, and cherish obscure traditions of a Western hero, 
the " lion of the valley of Jehoshaphat," destined to over- 
throw the false emperor and restore the throne of the 
White Tsar. The fame of Napoleon awakened their 
hopes, and it is said that, in 1812, they sent a deputa- 
tion to inquire of him if indeed he were the deliverer 
announced by the prophets. 

The adherents of both these sects have, by the tes- 
timony of all who, either in official or private capacity, 
have known them, always been distinguished for hon- 
esty, sobriety, industry, and peaceful obedience to the 
law. The government has frequently interfered to pre- 
vent the extension of their doctrines, and has transport- 
ed their settlements hither and thither to isolate them, 



THE MOLOKANI AND DOUKIIOBOKTSI. 281 

but, wherever established, they have invariably evinced 
the same docile submission and useful qualities. Agri- 
culture is their favorite pursuit ; they have been active 
pioneers in the southern steppes, making the wilderness 
to blossom like the rose, creating little republics, ani- 
mated by a strong theocratic spirit, realizing, as it is 
possible only in small communities, imbued with ardent 
faith and under strict moral disci pline, the Utopian theo- 
ries of practical socialism. 

Their flourishing colonies on the Molotchnaya river 
fell into anarchy and disorder at the disappearance of 
their leader, Kapoustine, about 1814; he was accused of 
attempts at proselytizing, and thrown into prison. Al- 
though he was soon afterwards liberated, nothing posi- 
tive is known cf his subsequent career. His son and 
grandson, who succeeded him in turn as the Christ, were 
weak and inefficient, and all authority fell into the hands 
of a council of elders, who were accused of frightful and 
revolting practices, substantiated by a government in- 
vestigation in 1S34. 1 The emperor Nicholas, always in- 
tolerant of Dissent, seized upon this pretext to break up 
their settlements, and in 1840 ordered the transportation 
to the Caucasus of all, both Molokani and Doukhobortsi, 
who refused to join the established Church. 

In their new home the Molokani, less extravagant than 
the others, have, by their frugality and industry, again 
built up thriving and prosperous villages. 

Among the reformatory Protestant sects there is one 
with Jewish tendencies, recruited chiefly among the 
lower population, whose history is obscure, whose doc- 
trines are but little known, but which merits notice from 
the singular fact of its existence amid a people obsti- 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 291. 



282 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

nately and universally hostile to the Israelitish race. Its 
distinguishing characteristic is their substitution of Sat- 
urday, the Jewish Sabbath, for Sunday, and its adherents 
are accordingly designated as " Soubbotniki," or " Sab- 
batarians." 

They do not pretend to know from whence they derive 
their belief, to which they are ardently attached, and, when 
questioned by the authorities, attempt no explanation, 
but, like the Kaskolniks of old, take refuge in passive 
and obstinate resistance. " It is the creed of our fathers ; 
leave us that, and we will submit to all else," is their 
reply. 

Jews and Jewish sects have existed in Eussia from 
time immemorial, and these Sabbatarians may be the 
successors of the Judaizing heretics of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, whose doctrines, at that period, penetrated among 
the upper clergy of Novgorod, and, for a moment, threat- 
ened the stability of the Orthodox Church ; or possibly 
they may be descendants of Jewish families, converted 
long ago by force, or from selfish motives of interest, and 
who preserve among themselves the traditions of their 
ancestors. They are found chiefly in the southwest, near 
the Polish provinces, where Jews are numerous and Jew- 
ish influence is strong. 

The denial of the Trinity, common to the reforming 
sects, has inclined some of them towards the Mosaic dis- 
pensation, and, in the study of the Bible, they have given 
preference to the Old Testament over the New. Not- 
withstanding the hatred and contempt felt by the com- 
mon people for the Jews, this point of contact in their 
religious belief has inspired efforts for a reconciliation of 
the Jewish and the Christian creeds. Eecently Nicholas 
Ilyne, a learned, eloquent, but visionary man, was con- 
fined in the Solovetsk monastery, on the White Sea, for 



ERRATIC AND RECENT SECTS. 283 

the crime of preaching a gospel which, in suppressing 

alike the dogmas and rites peculiar to Church and Syna- 
gogue, should unite them both in one faith, based on 
belief in the Unity of God and on righteousness of life. 1 
The servile formalism of the Raskolnik, the extrava- 
gant mysticism of the Khlvsti, the gross asceticism of 
the Bkoptsij the reformatory radicalism of the Protestant 
sects, all bear witness to the seething agitation and dis- 
tressing anxieties which disturb the popular mind in 
Russia. In its groping after the truth it is borne hither 
and thither, towards ritualism, mysticism, or rationalism. 
However numerous and diverse the old paths indicated 
by religious enthusiasm, they have not suificed to con- 
tent the aspirations of an eager and imaginative race, 
still seeking, in questions of faith, as in other great prob- 
lems, the true and final solution. Sects are constantly 
arising and disappearing. As old creeds die out new 
ones are being born. In the active effervescence of a vig- 
orous people, young in civilization, freshly emancipated 
from ancient servitude, mental and corporeal, still inex- 
perienced and undisciplined, brought into sudden contact 
with modern progress and ideas, while yet strongly im- 
bued with old prejudices and superstitions, imposture 
and fanaticism assume the language of inspiration, fa- 
vored by the religious instincts of the masses, and feebly 
opposed by the doubting spirit of the few. Popular 
credulousness and individual scepticism combined pro- 
duce astonishing and contradictory results. 

Striking characteristics of the Kussian people, who, 
though ignorant, are naturally intelligent and quick, are 
their childish simplicity, their naive enthusiasm, their fa- 
cile credulity ; they are still capable of welcoming false 

1 Dixon, "Free Russia," p. 124. 



2S4 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Christs and false tsars ; the most fabulous stories yet have 
credence, and the most barefaced mystifications find dupes. 

In 1874, scarcely at a day's journey from the capital, 
in the neighborhood of Pskov, it was currently reported, 
and actually believed, that the government had the in- 
tention of sending five thousand young girls to the Black 
Sea for distribution among the Arabs, and of bringing 
back as many swarthy maidens to fill their places. Mar- 
riage became an epidemic throughout the district, and 
every youth or damsel, of suitable years, was quickly 
provided with a mate to escape either deportation or a 
copper-colored wife. An inquiry established the fact 
that the tale originated with an innkeeper named Iakov- 
lev, as an ingenious method of increasing his custom, in- 
asmuch as, at a marriage ceremony, the tavern is as well 
patronized as the church. 

If the fable have its religious side, it is the more read- 
ily believed. In the same vicinity a sect was discovered, 
in 1872, composed almost entirely of women, the crea- 
tion of a runaway monk named Seraphim. Its prose- 
lytes were called the " Strijenisti," or the " Shorn," as at 
their initiation their hair was cropped, and the sale of 
their tresses was a source of income to its founder. His 
peculiar doctrine, which was the special allurement, 
taught that sin must precede, and is an indispensable 
preliminary to atonement ; as their chief, he provided his 
disciples with the means of grace. 

Similar instances abound, and explain the severity of 
the Eussian code against false prophets and religious im- 
postors. 

Besides rogues and charlatans, there are many who 
sincerely believe in their mission, who have a devotion- 
al craze, which imposes upon a people whose emotions 
are easily aroused, and who share the belief, common 



ERRATIC AND RECENT SECTS. 285 

throughout the East, that the insane are peculiarly 
blessed of God, and possess his Holy Spirit. Prophecy 
is the general characteristic of sects founded by these 
enthusiasts or demoniacs. The revelations are of di- 
verse nature, enunciated in diverse ways. They pro- 
nounce the actual fulfilment of scriptural promises and 
threats, or, predicting the future, they deal with the 
mysteries of heaven and hell, and proclaim the approach- 
ing end of the world and the coming of Christ. Yague, 
incoherent, .fluent declamations, clothed in ambiguous, 
but terse and Biblical, language, are devoutly received 
as inspired utterances, and are personally applied by 
credulous and imaginative listeners. 

Women are especially endowed with the gifts of preach- 
ing and prophesying. The Eussian peasant looks upon 
them as inferior beings in the usual avocations of life, 
but concedes to their feebler practical intelligence greater 
powers of comprehension of divine influences, and great- 
er susceptibility to them. He considers religion as essen- 
tially a domestic matter, and, as such, especially within 
the domain of the weaker sex. These female leaders of- 
ten bear the title of " Bogoroditsa " — " Holy Virgin," or 
" Mother of God," which is taken in a mystical sense, or 
sometimes literally, by those who are awaiting a new 
Messiah. These " Virgins," or " Mothers," are usually 
accompanied by a " Christ," but often exercise an author- 
ity equal to or superior to his. Souslov, among the Ivhl vs- 
ti, and Selivanov, among the Skoptsi, each had a " Holy 
Mother," and their successors likewise. Akoulina Ivan- 
ovna, the first Bogoroditsa of the Skoptsi, is still invoked 
and worshipped with divine honors ; their traditions de- 
clare her to have been the Empress Elizabeth, and, in 
defiance of history, the mother of Peter III., whom they 
confound with Selivanov. 



286 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Youth, beauty, or even virtue are secondary consid- 
erations ; Akoulina was very aged when she proclaimed 
Selivanov, and of her successors many have been of ma- 
ture years and of dubious reputations, owing their ele- 
vation to talent for intrigue, or gift of prophecy, or a 
fluent tongue. 

The predominance of female influence in matters of 
religion cannot be attributed to indifference on the part 
of the men, nor is it peculiar either to Eussia or to Eus- 
sian sects. In England and America the Shakers and 
similar denominations have had at their head a " moth- 
er " or a " bride," the " Lamb's wife " (Eev. xxi., 9) ; and 
the practice seems a natural consequence of the more 
emotional, excitable temperament of the " pious " sex. 

The ever-changing manifestations of the spirit of un- 
rest pervading the Eussian people present a dreary spec- 
tacle, as monotonous in its general character as it is di- 
versified in its special aspects. They are as evanescent 
as clouds flitting over a landscape ; scarcely more per- 
sistent or more definite. Every important crisis, every 
national event, evokes a corresponding spiritual move- 
ment to satisfy the aspirations or emotions of the 
moment. 

It was natural to suppose that the abolition of serf- 
dom, by removing the heaviest grievance bearing upon 
the people, would have been a fatal blow to sectarian 
protestations against existing evils, but, after a short lull 
of expectation, they were, on the contrary, aroused by it 
to new life and productive energy. The discontent of 
the peasantry at the conditions affixed to the purchase 
of land found vent in demonstrations taking religious 
form, and based on religious and Biblical grounds. 

At Perm, in 1866, Pouschkine, a small burgher of un- 
sound mind, became notorious by proclaiming that the 



RECENT SECTS. 287 

"earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is" (Deut. x., 
14) ; and that " the seed of the righteous shall inherit 
the earth " (Psa. xxw, 13). lie thereupon founded a sect 
and preached the doctrine that enfranchised serfs were 
entitled to the land by right, without payment and with- 
out rent. 1 Elsewhere equal distribution of land was ad- 
vocated as ordained by Scripture, and peasants refused to 
pay taxes, on the plea of revelations from St. John and St. 
Varvara in the seventh heaven ; that the promised days 
had come when " God should wipe away all tears from 
their eyes," and the " former things had passed away " 
(Rev. xxi., 4). 

Similar misconception of the emancipation led to op- 
position all over the empire to the new regulations re- 
garding the tenure of land, and the peasant evinced a 
comprehension of his material interests as keen as it was 
unfounded, and as strong as was his reverence for divine 
injunctions. 

Movements of this nature, however, which invariably 
assume a religious guise, need only police interference 
for their suppression, but they are, in their form of man- 
ifestation, indicative of the inveterate habit of the Rus- 
sian peasant to connect every event with religion. 

The sects that have come to light within the last few 
years are generally radical in both their political and 
moral aspect. 

They may be generically classed under the two heads 
already specified, as either mystical or rationalistic, and 
whereas formerly the first named were the more prolific 
and prosperous, at present the latter are the more nu- 
merous and important. The recent manifestations are 
comparatively petty and obscure, limited in their extent 

1 Dixon, "Free Russia," p. 130. 



288 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

and influence. A few illustrations will suffice to indi- 
cate their nature, which exhibits the singularly contra- 
dictory tendencies still existing among the people, rang- 
ing from gross materialism, combined with fanciful mys- 
ticism, to exalted spirituality and rationalism. 

In 1866 the " Tchislenniki," the " Counters," or " Enu- 
merators," proclaimed, in the government of Saratov, a 
new revelation contained in a book brought down from 
heaven by angels. Their leader was an illiterate peas- 
ant who preached a new gospel to the effect that God's 
people must be "counted" and set apart, that the order 
of time had been disturbed, holy festivals and fast days 
were wrongly calculated, and hours which should be 
sacred to the Lord were profaned by secular work. They 
kept Wednesday as the day of rest, instead of Sunday, 
and celebrated Easter on Ash- Wednesday. They reject- 
ed the priesthood, and held that every believer may ad- 
minister the sacraments ; they declared the established 
Church to be an institution of Satan's devising, ridiculed 
its ceremonies, and cursed it with all belonging to it. 
Their 'doctrines are said to resemble those of the rene- 
gade monk Seraphim, and teach that sin is the only way 
to salvation, the necessary prelude to pardon. In prac- 
tice they seem to unite the ritualism of the Old Believers 
with the radicalism of the Milk Drinkers, and the license 
of the Jumpers. 

In the government of Tambov a small burgher, named 
Panov, gave himself out as Christ, and collected a band 
of followers who claimed to be the only pure and right- 
eous ones, and held themselves carefully aloof from a 
world of sinners doomed to hell-fire. 

At Troitsa and Zlotooust, the " Pliasouni," or " Dan- 
cers," appeared in 1870 ; ostensibly belonging to the 
Church, but following the lead of a male and a female 



RECENT SECTS. 280 

prophet who preached doctrines similar to those of the 
Khlysti. 

In L872, at BelevsM, an army officer proclaimed a 
creed based upon that of the Skoptsi. 

Among the Beets of the other category, which are both 
spiritualistic and rationalistic, there is greater variety of 
opinions; they range from the most abstract mysticism 
to negation of all religion. 

The " NyemolyaM," or "Prayerless People," content 
themselves with inward meditation, without any out- 
ward expression or ceremony. The " Bezslovestnie," or 
the " .Dumb," abstain from speech altogether. The 
" Moltchalniki," or the " Taciturn," push their extrava- 
gance to denial of all religious belief; they reject the 
Bible and all traditions; recognize no priesthood nor 
Church ; have no forms, ritual, nor prayer ; disbelieve in 
a future life and in God, and carry their principle of 
negation to extremes. Every man is a revelation and* 
an authority to himself, which suffice for the present 
day. 

Another sect worship the portrait of the " Beatified " 
Kedeemer, and give themselves up to the holy ecstasy 
which its fixed contemplation arouses. The object of 
their adoration is a picture in the Troitsa monastery, of 
which the legend is that a very pious Byzantine empe- 
ror felt the greatest longing to behold the face of the 
Saviour, and wearied Heaven with his prayers, which at 
last w^ere answered. In a dream Christ appeared to him 
in the glory of His Transfiguration; before vanishing 
from his sight He pressed to His face a cloth lying upon 
the emperor's bed, and in the morning, when the empe- 
ror awoke, he found upon the cloth the likeness which 
he had beheld in his vision. 

It is the counterpart of the legend of the AVestern 
19 



290 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

Church, and of St. Veronica's napkin, upon which was 
reproduced the features of the " Suffering " Eedeemer. 1 

The sect of the " Yozcloukhantsi," or the " Cighing 
Ones," was discovered about 1871, among the petty mer- 
chants and traders of the city of Kalouga. Their founder 
was Ivan Tirkhanov, a shoemaker, who preached the ab- 
rogation of all Church ceremonies and the ritual; he 
declared the sacraments to be vain and useless in them- 
selves, and that they should be taken only in a figurative 
spiritual sense. Man needs no intermediary between 
himself and his Maker ; real religion consists in mute 
adoration, in mental communion. Prayer uttered by the 
lips, the spoken word, is too gross and too material for 
the worship of God, who is a Spirit ; in the heart alone 
should mortals draw near their Creator ; the sighings of 
a contrite heart, the aspirations of a devout soul only 
are acceptable in His sight, and these sectaries, with the 
simple-minded, credulous realism of the Eussian, appeal 
to the Deity, and adore Him by silent, long-drawn 
breathings and heavy sighs. 

The " Stundists " appeared first in the neighborhood 
of Odessa, where there are many German Lutheran com- 
munities, and are probably the earliest, perhaps the only, 
sect of a distinctively foreign origin, and having direct 
affiliation with Western Protestantism ; their name, as 
well as their doctrine, is German. 

Among the Teutonic colonists were sectaries, under 
the leadership of Michael Eatuzhny, who called them- 
selves the " Friends of God" (" Gottesf reunde "), and who 
met together for the reading of the Bible during their 
leisure hours (" Stunclen "), whence their appellation of 
"Stundists." They endeavored to spread their doc- 

1 Haxthausen, vol. i., pp. 77 and 255. 



THE STUNDISTS. 291 

trines and practices among Christiana of all denomina- 
tions, and, abont L870, their disciples were found in Little 
Russia. The dissemination of their teachings in this por- 
tion of the empire is remarkable, from the fact that Little- 
Russians have generally evinced but slight interest in 
religious movements without the pale of the Church, and 
feel no sympathy for the foreign population in their midst. 
From Odessa and the government of Kherson the Stun- 
dists spread into the adjoining provinces of Ekaterinoslav 
and Kiev. Their religion appears to be a Protestantism 
of a very decided type, and in the few church ceremo- 
nies which they retain, such as a second baptism for 
adults, they resemble the Anabaptists and Mennonites of 
Germany. They reject external observances, fasts, im- 
ages, the invocation of the saints, and all the rites of 
Orthodox worship as simply useless and unnecessary ; 
they seem to be animated more by a spirit of calculation 
and of economy, of indifference to outward form, rather 
than by religious scruples or any deep-seated repugnance 
to church ceremonies ; they appear to regard them as 
unprofitable and a needless waste of time, rather than as 
being in themselves impious or idolatrous. 

In private life they are distinguished for sobriety, fru- 
gality, and industry ; they evince remarkable intelligence 
in the management of their affairs, are obedient to the 
laws, and exact in the payment of taxes and imposts, 
but, in spite of official pressure, they refuse to have re- 
course to the clergy, whom they consider to be a costly 
and useless parasitical excrescence. They advocate the 
equal repartition of the land, are inclined to socialistic 
opinions, and form a community of brothers and sisters, 
all enjoying equal rights. 

The policy of the government towards them has been 
similar to that adopted with the Molokani, and has pro- 



292 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

duced similar results. Instead of preventing the spread 
of their doctrines it has had rather the contrary effect, 
as, by breaking np their settlements and distributing 
them through the Caucasus and Siberia, it has sent forth, 
in the persons of the exiles, an army of zealous mission- 
aries. 

The sects of which mention has been made are but a 
few of the many recently brought to light. The vitality 
and persistent energy of the sectarian spirit are remark- 
able, inasmuch as most of the causes provoking its man- 
ifestation either exist no longer, or are rapidly disappear- 
ing. Effects, however, are often perceived after the first 
impulse has ceased to act. Sect begets sect, as the plant 
is reproduced by its yearly seed. It is hopeless to ex- 
pect to stifle the spiritual aspirations of a vigorous, 
quick-witted, eager race, and to arrive at the dead level 
of unity of faith and obedience to one Church, which 
the emperor Nicholas conceived to be the consummation 
most devoutly to be wished ; nor is such an achievement 
desirable ; but to check the extravagances resulting from 
superstition and ignorance, to direct the restless spirit of 
the people to proper channels and towards a legitimate 
end, demands wide diffusion of education and knowledge, 
for "ignorance is the mother of devotion;" moreover 
the gap still yawning between the extremes of Kussian 
society must be bridged over by liberal measures, in ac- 
cordance with the spirit and requirements of the age. 
It is a work of time and patience, for the Eussian people 
are tenacious and slow to change. The century and a 
half, since the days of Peter the Great, have not sufficed 
to cement the nation together as a homogeneous whole, 
and less than a generation has elapsed since the abolition 
of serfdom inaugurated the present era of reform. 

In further explanation of the present mental state of 



ATTITUDE OK THE GOYEENMENT, 993 

the Eussian people, and for better comprehension of the 
continued eccentric, fantastic manifestations of a relig- 
ious character, it may be observed that while the ulti- 
mate results of the thorough transformation of national 
life, still progressing, will be to calm and pacify the agi- 
tation which it excites, for the time being it tends to 
encourage and stimulate aspirations for new things, and 
these aspirations, in accordance with the character of the 
race, invariably assume religious guise and expression. 
Although socialistic ideas, and tendencies of an economic 
and practical nature, are engrafted upon the doctrinal 
teachings of many of the new sects, there is among the 
people a deep-seated, devotional craving which the for- 
malism of the Easkol, and the rigidity of the State 
Church with its official clergy, fail to satisfy, which 
inevitably finds relief in new creeds and more spiritual 
religions, and to which education only can give intelli- 
gent direction. 

The attitude of the State towards the Easkol and the 
various independent sects has varied according to the 
necessities of the times and the circumstances of the mo- 
ment. 

The tsar Alexis and his son, Feodor, persecuted dis- 
senters as heretics and enemies of religion. Peter the 
Great pursued them as perturbators of the public peace 
and opponents of imperial reform, or he tolerated them 
as industrious, tax-paying subjects, sources of income for 
his impoverished exchequer. Catherine II. and her suc- 
cessors have treated them alternately with kindness or 
with severity, endeavoring at one time to allure them 
back into the Church, and at another solicitous only to 
bring them into submission to civil authority. 

During this latter period, that is, since Catherine's 
accession to the throne, the policy of the government 



294 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

towards them has been fickle and changeable. They 
have been in turn persecuted and tolerated, threatened 
and encouraged, according to the whim of the sovereign 
or the prevailing influences of the moment. This shift- 
ing, fluctuating legislation, and the contradictory nature 
of the measures adopted are attributable to the general 
ignorance which existed regarding the different schismatic 
movements — ignorance the more gross, from the indiffer- 
ence and contempt felt for any popular manifestation 
of opinion, and which led to the careless and erroneous 
comprehension of all the various bodies, with their hete- 
rogeneous doctrines, under one head, the Kaskol. 

As a consequence of this grave misapprehension the 
same remedies were indiscriminately applied to them all. 
Orderly Old Believers, with a regular hierarchy, anarchi- 
cal ~No Priests, with none, Flagellants and Champions of 
the Spirit, reactionary conservatives and revolutionary 
radicals — all confounded together with reckless disregard 
of reason or propriety — were treated alike. 

As public opinion became by degrees more enlight- 
ened, and the apparition of eccentric and immoral sects 
rendered it necessary to make distinctions, insufficient 
classification again led to further confusion and error. 

All Dissenters were included in two categories, " per- 
nicious " sects and sects " less pernicious," as if the only 
difference between them consisted in the degree of evil. 

The " pernicious," or dangerous sects, so called, com- 
prised all whose doctrines appeared to threaten public or 
social order, to set at naught the moral law, or endanger 
the unity of the Orthodox Church. The peaceful Mo- 
lokani and ignorant Sabbatarians figured in the official 
lists with the rebellious Stranniki, the fanatical Khlysti 
and Skoptsi. 

In dealing with them the government seemed actuated 



COMMISSION ORDERED BY NICHOLAS. 295 

at different times by various motives, now acting simply 
in defence of political and social interests, and, again, so- 
licitous for the welfare of the Church and the advance- 
ment of religion. It had no fixed, permanent policy, 
and adopted no clear or well-defined system of legisla- 
tion. Authoritative enactments, dictated by the pre- 
sumed necessities of the moment, or by the caprice of 
the sovereign, followed one upon another, the last abro- 
gating or modifying the preceding. Such laws as did 
exist were arbitrarily applied, altered by special instruc- 
tions, and tampered with by venal officials. 

The emperor Nicholas, for the first time, ordered a 
special investigation of the subject, and was amazed at 
the extent and influence of the movement, which, with 
his accustomed energy and decision, he attempted to 
regulate with a view to its entire suppression. A secret 
commission was charged with the affairs appertaining to 
the Easkol, and administered them under ordinances 
framed by itself, but never publicly promulgated. Dis- 
senters of every creed and denomination, subjected to 
regulations of which they were frequently left in igno- 
rance until enforced, became a defenceless prey to the 
cupidity of government employees and to the rancorous 
hostility of the lower clergy. Such of them as belonged 
to the peasant class were inhibited from holding positions 
of trust in the rural districts ; those who were traders or 
merchants were excluded from mercantile guilds, and 
deprived of the privileges of their order. A Easkolnik 
could not testify in courts of justice against an Ortho- 
dox ; he was not allowed to change his residence without 
permission, and was forbidden to leave the empire ; the 
erection of new churches and the repairing of the old 
ones were prohibited. 

To these severe and legally authorized restrictions was 



296 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT. 

added the more grievous persecution of almost irrespon- 
sible government agents, the " tchinovniks," against 
which the only protection and means of redress was 
briber}^. 

This melancholy state of things could not fail to at- 
tract attention when Alexander II. commenced the era 
of reform which dates from his reign. Imperial com- 
missions of able and distinguished men were appointed 
by him for the serious and impartial examination of the 
question of Dissent, and their efforts were encouraged by 
the assurance of his personal interest and co-operation. 
Their work is still in progress, but provisional enact- 
ments, applied Avith comparative justice by a more honest 
administration, have already greatly alleviated the con- 
dition of the Easkolniks. 

A circular, issued in 1858, firmly established the prin- 
ciple of toleration by allowing to all Easkolniks, born 
such, the exercise of their religious faith ; it is probable 
that this privilege will be eventually extended, and that 
similar provision will be made to guarantee their civil 
rights, which now exist by sufferance only. The meas- 
ures contemplated will, it is believed, leave them free to 
change their residence at will, to travel abroad, to enter 
mercantile guilds, to create schools for their children, 
and, what is especially gratifying to Eussian pride, to 
accept and wear decorations or honorary distinctions. 
The marriage difficulty has been already solved by the 
edict of 1874. 

The old classification of the sects is still preserved in 
theory, but while such as are reputed dangerous will 
probably be kept under rigid supervision, active persecu- 
tion has ceased ; their meetings in private may be tol- 
erated, so long as they do nothing to violate public de- 
cency or to offend against the requirements of social life. 



PRESENT TOLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 297 

Other sects, " less pernicious," and especially the Old 
Believers, will, it is believed, be permitted to meet to- 
gether at their houses, chapels, and cemeteries for prayer 
and religious service; the seals closing their sacred edi- 
fices will be removed and necessary repairs allowed; 
only the public celebration of their worship and the 
erection of new churches will remain prohibited. The 
"Raskolnik priests and readers, even their bishops, conse- 
crated by the pontiff at Belo-Krinitsa, will be exempted 
from pursuit, and, as a matter of fact, they already freely 
exercise their pastoral and clerical duties. They must, 
however, and the rule applies to all religious denomina- 
tions in Eussia, whether foreign or domestic, refrain from 
making proselytes among members of the Orthodox 
communion. This is not only a sin against the Church, 
but is a crime against the law. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Absolution, 182, 200. 

Absorption of Unia by Ortbodoxy, 131 ; 
of Popovtsism, 281. 

Academy of Kiev, 82; of Moscow, 120, 
133; of St. Petersburg, 178. 

Adaschef, Alcxi-, 49, 51. 

Adrian, Patriarch, «3, 115, 11G, 11& 

Ahkmet. 42, 4a 

Aix-la-Chapelle, 3. 

Akoulina Ivanovna, 268, 285, 286. 

All)asin, 111"). 

Aleppo, Paul of, 91, 93. 

Alexis, Metropolitan, 28-30. 

Alexis Komanoff, Tsar, see Romanoff. 

Alexis the Judaizer, 184. 

Alexis, Tsarevitch. 123. 

Alexander I.. 222, 223, 259, 2G1, 2C9, 273. 

Alexander II., 206, 228, 296. 

Alexander Nevaki, St., 26, 165; Monas- 
tery of, 167. 

Alexander of Lithuania, 44. 

Alexandria, 63, 101. 

Alexandrov, 51, 52, 55. 

Ambrosius, 227, 228. 

America, 206, 286. 

A moor, 116. 

Amurat II., 34. 

Anabaptists, 291. 

Anastasia, see Komanoff. 

Anastasius, Metropolitan, 51, 52. 

Andrew, St., the Apostle, 12, 13. 

Anglo-Saxon, 206, 257. 

Anna, Princess, 18; Ivanovna, Empress, 
217,2:16. 239. 

Anthony of the Petcherski, St., 22, 23, 
29. 

Anthony of Solovetsk, 74. 

Authonv the Roman, St., 13. 

Antichrist, 193, 202-204. 230, 236-238, 
242. 

Antioch, 60, 63, 94, 101. 



Apocalypse, 189, 193, 204, 266. 

A read i us, 1. 

Archangel, Church of, 184, 215. 

Arius, 2. 

Armenian Churches, 132. 

Armenians, 212. 

Ascension, Convent of, 78. 

Asia, 31,0-1, 140. 

Asia Minor, 13, 218. 

Assumption, Cathedral of, 36, 100, 184, 

272. 
Assur (Assour), 194. 
Astracan, 50, 79. 
Atheism, 137. 
Athos, Mt., 46, 57, 186. 
Attorney-Generalof the Holy Synod, 157. 
Augustus of Poland, 129. 
Austria, 117, 139, 218, 227, 228. 
Azov, 121. 

B. 
Babylon, 192, 194. 
Baikal, Lake, 205. 
Bajazet, 33. 
Baptism, 85, 86, 96, 127, 145, 147, 182, 

200 ; of Skoptsi, 266 ; of Molokani, 

276. 
Barlaam of the Petcherski, 23. 
Barlaam, Metropolitan, 46. 
Basil I., 14, 15. 
Basil II., 18. 
Basil, Heretic, 277, note. 
Basil. St., 162. 
Batory, Stephen, 55, 66. 
Beast'of the Apocalypse, 193. 194, 244. 
Beglopopovtsi, the. 219. 
Begouni, the, see Stranniki. 
Iklevski, 289. 
Believers, Old. 189. 193, 195. 198, 206, 

211, 213, 215, 217, 225-232, 239, 248, 

254, 265, 272, 288, 294, 297 ; their 

aspirations, 233. 
Bellerophon, legend on statue of, 18. 



INDEX. 



Bclo-Krinitsa, 227, 229, 230, 297. 

Bethlehem, Council of, 12G; village, 
253. 

Bezpopovtsi, the, 199, 200, 222, 236, 
237, 239-241, 247, 248, 274, 275, 294 ; 
extravagances, 201-203 ; distribution, 
215, 21G, 219, 221; organization, 234; 
ceremonies, 235. 

Bezpopovtsism, 219, 243. 

Bezslovestnie, the, 289. 

Bible, the, 15, 19, 84, 140, 182, 189, 194, 
214, 216, 234, 235, 240, 244, 254, 255, 
262, 268, 275-278, 282, 283, 287, 289. 

Bishops, 19, 25, 33, 37, 40, 62, 63, 67, 74, 
80-82, 86, 96, 99, 100, 106, 157-159, 
175, 178, 198, 199, 224, 227, 297. 

Blacherne, Church of, 14. 

Black Clergv, see Clergy. 

Black Sea, 284. 

Boehm, Jacob, 253, 276. 

Bogoloubsky, Andrew, 181. 

Bogomiles, the, 277, and note. 

Boretsky, Job of Kiev, 81, 82, 86. 

Bosnia, 227. 

Bosphorus, The, 18, 61, 139, 190. 

Brahmins, the, 254. 

Bread in the Eucharist, 5, 6, 35, 146. 

Brethren of the Sword, the, 25. 

Brodiagi, the, see Stranniki. 

Budget, the clerical, 177. 

Bukovina, 218, 227. 

Bulgaria, Bulgarians, 4, 17, 277. 

Burners, the, see Sojigateli. 

Burnet, Gilbert, 117. 

Busurmani, the, 69. 

Byzantine theologians, 8, 216. 

Bvzantium, Empire of, 33, 37, 56, 163, 
*187. 

C. 

Calvinists, 115, 126, 277. 

Capitation tax, 192. 

Casimir, of Poland, 37. 

Catherine II., 120, 130, 134, 135, 191, 
217, 218, 220, 223, 231, 232, 268, 272, 
293. 

Catholic clergy, priests, 10, 34, 73, 117, 
130,150; communities, 215. 

Catholics, in Russia, 57, 72, 115; in Po- 
land, 70, 80, 81, 128-130, 217; and 
Peter the Great, 117. 

Catholicism, 139, 152, 277. 

Caucasus, the, 217, 271, 281, 292. 

Celibacy, 149, 150, 160; among Bezpo- 
povtsi, 201, 242. 



Census, the, 192. 

Centralization of Church government, 
158, 159. 

Ceremonies of the Church, 86, 145-151, 
185, 288, 290, 291 ; of the Bezpopov- 
tsi, 200, 235 ; of the Khlysti, 258, 259 ; 
of the Shakouni, 261-263; of the 
Skoptsi, 267, 272, 273; of the Ra- 
tionalistic sects, 274, 275. 

Cerularius, Michael, 5. 

Champions of the Spirit, the, see 
Doukhobortsi, 

Charlemagne, 3. 

Chersonesus, the, 15. 

Child-killers, the, see Dieto-oubiisti. 

Children of priests, 170, 171,176; of Ras- 
kolniks, 246 ; of Skoptsi, 266. 

China, 116. 

Chrism, The Holy, 4, 147. 

Christ, Jesus, 2, 36, 43, 55, 84, 85, 95, 
133, 141, 190, 198, 202, 204, 205, 230, 
254, 255, 260, 262, 268, 269, 275-279, 
281, 283, 285, 288, 289. 

Christianity in Russia, 12, 19, 24, 139, 
152. 

Chrysostom, St., 59. 

Church books, correction of, 45-47, 50, 
78, 94, 186, 187 ; errors in, 185. 

Church of Rome, 4, 34, 127, 131, 140, 
151, 188, 190, 289; Eastern, 58, 59; 
of Little Russia, 68 ; government of 
the, 158, 159; see Unia, Uniates. 

Church, Orthodox Greek, 3, 4, 9, 15-21, 
24, 33, 61, 63, 94, 95, 140, 235, 250; 
union with Rome, 34-36; degrada- 
tion, 58-60. 

Church, Orthodox Polish ; united with 
Russian, 32, 111, 1 12 ; separated from, 
33 ; accepts Unia, 37 ; persecuted, 44- 
46, 66, 80, 81, 80, 128, 129; rejects 
Unia, 44 ; depends on Constantinople, 
44, 112; reforms, 67; divided, Unia 
and Orthodoxy, 68 ; dissensions, 81 ; 
tranquil, 82; tolerated, 130. 

Church, Orthodox Russian, 7, 235, 237- 
239, 260, 267, 268, 274, 275, 277, 283, 
288, 289, 291, 293-295, 297; nation- 
al character of, 19, 22, 24, 25-28, 42, 
55, 139, 143; missions of, see Mis- 
sions; under Tatars, 26, 27, 40, 41; 
reforms in, see Reforms, Church books; 
increase of, 29, 39, 65, 78; dissensions 
in, 28, 30, 31, 107, 112, 180; connec- 
tion of, with Polish, 32, 33; rejects 
union with Roman, 36, 56, 123; with 



INDEX. 



301 



English, 124, 126; corruption of, 81, 
41, 62, 54 ; independent of < Sonstanti- 
nople, 37, 88, 58 ; heresies in, «« 1 1 1 r- 
esies, Raskol, Dissent ; struggle of, 
with State, 1 1. 87, 98, 106; martyrs 
of, 16, .')■;. 64, 7 1, 75; patriarchate of, 
60 64; loyalty of, 70, 71-76; rebap- 
tism in, 7;>, 127; doctrines of, 88 86, 
116 ; differences of, from < rreek 

Church, 9 I -96; from Catholic and 

Protestant, 144 152; Nikon's career in, 
961 Nikon; Polotsky's scheme for, 108; 
persecutes Dissent, 122, 127, 182, 188; 
change of government in, 124, 125; 

synod of, Bee Synod; sacraments of, 
85,86, 145 151; marriage with non- 
Orthodox, 127; subjection of, to 
State, 128, 135, 136, 193; toleration 
in, 130; absorbs I'uia, 131, 132; its 
property sequestered, 118-120, 184; 
influence of, on civilization, 140, im- 
mutability of, 140, 152; characteris- 
tics of, 142; isolation of, 143; his- 
toric development of, 153-15."); Edi- 
novertsism, 2:51-233; absorption of 
Popovtsism, 231; clergy of, see Cler- 
gy; monasteries of, tee Monasticism, 
Monasteries, Nunneries; Dissent in, 
see Raskol, Dissent. 

Churches, Eastern and Western, 2, 6- 
11. 

Circularists, 230, 

Claudio Rangoni, 70. 

Clement, Metropolitan, 25. 

Clement VII., Pope, 46, 70. 

Clement VIII., Pope. 67. 

Clergy, the, of the Russian Church, 31, 
39," 11 3, 143, 105, 173-178, 182, 185, 
210, 234, 237, 293; ignorance of, 31, 
41, 88, 104, 106, 107, 120, 133, 175, 
177, 1S2; effect of Tatar rule upon, 
40,42; entrance to, 119; morals of, 
133,144; poverty of, 149,150; regular 
or monastic, secular, married, or par- 
ish, 159; black and white, 160, 161; 
restrictions, 166; a caste, 170, 171; 
numbers of, 172; English, 124, 126; 
of the Popovtsi, 199, 210, 219; of 
the Edinovertsi, 233, 247, 259. 

Clerical life in Russia, 160; caste, 170. 

Cocas, Joasaph of Constantinople, 59. 

Code, the Russian, 148, 284, 297. 

Colleges, of Peter the Great, 124; the 
Spiritual, 125. 

Commission, the Economical, 134. 



Communion, 127, 145, see Eucharist; the 
first, 1 17, 1 19 : of the Khlysti, 255; 
Shakouni, 202, 263; Skoptai, -_'7l ; 
Bfolokani, 276. 

Comparison of East and West, 6; of 
America and Russia, "-'<>»'>. "_'t»7. 

Confession of Peter Mogila, 82, 88, 94, 
lit;, 126 ; auricular, 146-149. 182, 200, 
276. 

Confirmation, 86, 147. 

Constantine the (.rent, 16. 

Constantine VII., Emperor, 5, 15. 

Constantine II., .Metropolitan of Kiev, 
181. 

Constantinople, 1, 3-5, 7, 14. 16-18, 20, 
22, --'•;, 27, 30, 36-38, 43-46, 56, 58, 
5'.', 63, 67, 80, 82, 83, 94. 96, 111-113, 
142, 145, 153, 154, 180, 186, 227, 277, 
278. 

Conversion of the Russian people, 14, 19, 
185. 

Cornelius of Novgorod, 110. 

Cossacks, the, 68, 71, 73, 80, 81, 86, 97, 
116, 214, 215, 226. 

Councils: sixth, 2; of Aix-la-Chapclle, 
3; seventh, 3; of Constantinople, 3, 
4 ; of Florence, 34-36, 42, 44, 56 ; of 
the Hundred Chapters, 49, 106, 186; 
general, 85, 86 ; for Nikon's trial, 101 ; 
of Pethlehem, 126. 

Counters, the, see. Tchislenniki. 

Court, the patriarchal, 78. 87, 106, 118; 
of the Great Palace, 79; the mon- 
astery court, 87, 98, 106. 

Cracow, 130. 

Crescent, the, 96. 

Crimea, the, 135, 228. 

Cross, the sign of the, 95, 188, 235, 274; 
Russian form of the, 95, 96, 188. 

Cypharas, Constantine, 15. 

Cyprian, Metropolitan, 30-32. 

Cyprian, of Polotsk, 128. 

Cyprus, 72. 

Cyril Lucar, 59, 82, 83. 

Cyril, Metropolitan, 26, 27. 

Cyril, Metropolitan of the Popcvtsi, 228, 
*229. 

Cyril, St., 15, 19. 

D. 

Dacia, 15. 

Dancers, the. see Pliasouni. 

Dancing, 257-259, 261. 

Daniel, Metropolitan, 46, 47, 186. 

Daniel, Prophet, 202. 



302 



INDEX. 



Danube, the, 15. 

Deacons, 44, 86, 172, 236. 

Debauchery of the Bezpopovtsi, 201; of 
Mystic Sects, 2C1. 

Decentralization of Orthodox Church, 
142. 

Denisoff, 219, 236. 

Department of the Monasteries, 118, 
119. 

Dependency of Church on State, 152 ; 
opinions of the Popovtsi, .233. 

Development, historical, of the Eussian 
Church, 153. 

Diaconate, the, 173. 

Dieto-oubiisti, the, 204. 

Differences, between the Eastern and 
Western Churches, 2, 6 - 11 ; be- 
tween the Russian and other Greek 
Churches, 94, 188 ; in rites and cere- 
monies, 144-150; between Greek and 
Latin Churches, 140-142, 150. 

Dimitri, Archimandrite, and St., 120. 

Dimitri II., 29. 

Dimitri III., Donskoi, 29-31. 

Dimitri, Pretenders, 73-75. 

Dimitri, the False, 70-72, 75. 

Dimitri, Tsarevitch, 65, 70. 

Dionysius, Archimandrite, 74, 75, 79. 

Dionysius, Metropolitan, 57, 58. 

Dionysius of Constantinople, 59. 

Dionysius, the Judaizer, 183, 184. 

Dir, 14. 

Dissent and Dissenters, 106, 107, 111, 
113-115, 165, 179, 180, 248, 281, 293- 
295 ; persecution of, 121, 122, 127, 132 ; 
toleration of, 127, 133, 134. See Bas- 
kol; Raskolniks; Old Believers; Old 
Eitualists; Strigolniks; Judaizers; 
Popovtsi; Bezpopovtsi, etc. 

Division, of the Easkol, 190. 198, 199; 
among the Popovtsi, 229, 230. 

Divorce, 150, 158. 

Dnieper, the, 13, 14, 19, 28, 153, 163, 164. 

Dobrutscha, the, 226. 

Doctrines of the Eussian Church, 83-86. 

Dodecalogue of the Khlysti, 256. 

Don, Battle of the, 30, 31, 71, 122. 

Don, Cossacks of the, 68, 71, 215. 

Donskoi, the, 30, 31 ; Monastery of, 163, 
164. 

Dositheus, Patriarch, 83, 126. 

Double Procession of the Holy Ghost, 
see Ghost. 

Doukhobortsi, the, 273, 274, 277, 278, 
280, 281, 294. 



Doushilstchiki, the, 204. 
Drunkenness of priests, 91, 133, 175. 
Dumb, the, see Bezslovestnie. 
Dwellers by the Sea Shore, see Pomortsi. 

E. 

East and West, comparison of, 6-11. 
Easter, 2, 127, 288 ; Easter of the Skoptsi, 

263, 271. 
Eastern Church, see Orthodox Greek 

Church. 
Eastern Patriarchs, 2, 8, 14, 36, 37, 43, 

61, 63, 64, 80, 86, 91. 100, 101, 103, 

110, 123, 126, 181, 188, 199, 216, 227 ; 

see Patriarch ; Patriarchate. 
Ecclesiastical authority, 141. 
Economical Commission, the, 134. 
Edinovertsi, the, 231, 245. 
Edinovertsism, 233. 
Education of White Clergy, 172, 173. 
Efim, 243. 
Ekaterinoslav, 291. 
Elders, of the Bezpopovtsi, 200, 234, 235, 

239 ; of the Khlysti, 258, 259 ; of the 

Molokani, 275, 281 ; of the Shakouni, 

261 ; of the Strigolniki, 182. 
Elia, St., 15, 138. 
Elinski, 269. 

Elizabeth, Empress, 129, 132, 285. 
End of the World, the, 39, 202, 285. 
England, 117, 206, 215, 217, 286. 
English Clergy, the, 124, 126 ; Church, 

126. 
Epiphany, the, 181. 
Episcopate, the, 160, 178. 
Errors, in ritual and Church books, see 

Church Books. 
Eucharist, the, 5, 6, 35, 85, 86, 145-149, 

182, 188, 200, 276. 
Eugenius IV., Pope, 34-36. 
Eunuchs, the, see Stranniki. 



Faith, Peter Mogila's Confession of, see 

Confession. 
Fasting, 4. 

Fellers, the, see Doushilstchiki. 
Feodoce'i of the Petcherski, 23j of the 

Bezpopovtsi, 221, 236, 239. 
Feodocians, the, 221, 222, 237, 239, 241- 

243, 265. 
Feodor I., 57, 60-62, 65, 72, 73, 293. 
Feodor III., 108-111. 
Feodor, Martyr at Kiev, 16. 
Ferrara, 35. 






INDEX. 



303 



Filioque, 3, 4. 

Flagellants, the, tee Klilysti. 

Florence, 85, 42, 44, 56. 

Foreigners, Russian jealousy and hatred 

of, 22, 24, 25, 69, 118, 116, 11G, 188, 

198. 
Formalism, of Russian Church, 145; of 

people and clergy, 185, 188, 274 ; of 

the Raakol, 189, 
France, 8, 44, 160,215. 
Freedom of worship, 81 ; of conscience, 

129, 18Q, 184, 210; of interpretation, 

141, 151, 180, 189, 190, 197, 200, 214, 

218, 219, 234. 
Free Love, 201, 206, 240. 
Free-masonry, 2G0, '272. 
Fugitives, the, see Stranniki. 

G. 
Gallida, 227. 
Gapers, the, 200. 
Gaul, 1G3. 

Gelaktion of Souzdal, 74. 
Genghis Khan, 31. 
Gennadiua of Novgorod, 74, 184. 
George, St., 138. 
Georgia, 157. 
Gcrmanus, 52. 
Germanv and the Germans, 17, 24, 115, 

117, 103,290,291. 
Gerontius, Metropolitan, 42, 184. 
Ghost, the Holy, 2-4, G, 3G, 83-86, 256, 

260, 277. 
Godounov, Boris, 58, Gl, G2, 65, 66, 68-73, 

77, 154. 
Gorodine, Mt., 254. 
Gospel, the, see Bible. 
Greece, 7, 156. 
Greek Church, the, see Church; doctors, 

17 , empire, 4 ; people, 34. 
Gregory, Metropolitan of Kiev, 37, 44. 
Gregory Nanzianzen, 8. 
Gregory of Constantinople, 59. 
Gregory VII., Pope, 24. 
Gregory XIII., Pope, 55, 56. 
Gumbinnen, 218. 

H. 

Halleluia, 95, 188. 

Head of the Church, 105, 141, 142, 156, 

157. 
Hegel, 278. 
Helena, Daughter-in-law of Ivan III., 

184. 
Helena, Daughter of Ivan III., 44, 45. 



Helena, St., 16. 

Helena, Wife of Vassili IV,, 47. 

Henry of Germany, 117. 

Heresies: of Arius, 2; of the Roman 
Church, 4; in the Russian Church, 
43, 180-184, 266, 278, -'77, 262; Gnos- 
tic, 251, 252 : of Kullman, 251. 

Hermitages, 162, 220, 285. 

Hermogenes, Patriarch, 73-75. 

Hierarchy, of the Church, G3, 101; of 
Popovtsism, 227; of Polish Church, 
81; of Uniate Church, 232. 

Ililarion, Metropolitan, 22, 23. 

Holland, 117. 

Holy, see Chrism ; Ghost ; Spirit ; Synod ; 
Thursday. 

Ilonorius, 1. 

Horde, the, 27 ; Golden, 50 ; beyond the 
Falls, 86. 

Hospitallers, the, see Stranniki. 

Hundred Chapters, Council of the, see 
Councils. 

Iberia, our Lady of, 169. 

Icons, see Pictures. 

Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 

3-5. 
Ignatius, Patriarch of Moscow, 72, 75- 

77. 
IgUT of Kiev, 15, 16. 
Iissous, 95, 230. 
Illyria, 33. 
Ilmen, Lake, 13. 
Dyne, Nicholas, 282. 
Image Worship, 2, 144. 
Immutabilitv of the Church, 9, 140, 141, 

151,152,1*59. 
Imperator, title of, 194. 
Independence of Church of Russia, 37, 

153,159; of Church from State, 152, 

233. 
India, 212, 254. 

Infants and Infanticide, 147, 241. 
Innocent IV., Pope, 26. 
Inspiration, 256, 2G0, 268. 
Irene, Tsarina, 58, 66. 
Irkutsk, 116, 268. 
Isiaslav, 23, 24, 117. 

Isidore, Metropolitan, 33-37, 56 ; of Nov- 
gorod, 74. 
Isolation of Russian Church, 140, 143 ; 

of the peasantry, 216. 
Issous, 95. 230. 
Italv,34,215. 
Ivan I., "Kalita," 27-29. 



304 



INDEX. 






Ivan III., 41-45. 79, 87, 183. 

Ivan IV., the " Terrible," 47-57, 70, 113, 

18G, 277. 
Ivan, Martyr at Kiev, 16. 
Ivan, Tsarevitch, 55. 
Ivan V., 111. 
Ivanovitch, Simon, 82. 
Iverski Convent, the, 89, 99, 164. 

J. 

Japhet, 12. 

Jassy, 83. 

Jehosaphat of Polotsk, 81. 

Jeremiah I. of Constantinople, 59. 

Jeremiah II. of Constantinople, 59-63, 

67. 
Jerusalem, 13, 24, 43, 63, 77, 81, 83, 126, 

190. 
Jesuits, the, 67, 72, 82, 115, 123, 127, 129, 

130, 260. 
Jesus, 95, 188. 
Jews, the, 17, 43, 121, 132, 174, 183, 193, 

205, 212, 270, 281, 282. 
Joachim of Antioch, 60, 61. 
Joachim of Constantinople, 59. 
Joachim of Moscow, 107-111, 115. 
Joasaph Cocas of Constantinople, 59. 
Joasaph II. of Constantinople, 59. 
Joasaph II. of Moscow, 106, 107. 
Job of Novgorod, 121. 
Job, Patriarch of Moscow, 58, 62, 71, 73. 
John PalaBologus, 33, 34, 36. 
John the Apostle, St., 189, 193, 287. 
Jonah II. of Kiev, 66. 
Jonah, Metropolitan of the Steeps, 76, 

100. 
Jonah, Monk (Ivan IV.), 57. 
Jonah of Riazan, 28, 33, 37. 
Jonah of Rostov, 100. 
Joseph, Hegumen, 184. 
Joseph of Kolomna, 74. 
Judaea, 252. 

Judaizers, the, 43, 183, 184, 282. 
Jumpers, the, see Shakouui. 

K. 

Kalouga, 290. 

Kapoustine, 279, 281. 

Karp,181,182. 

Kasan, 50, 63, 79, 116. 

Kherson, 18,291. 

Khlysti, the, 267, 268, 273, 283, 289, 

294 ; origin of, 253, 254 ; deities, 255 ; 

moral law, 256 ; practices, 257-261 ; 

prophesying, 259, 285. 



Khoutinsk, Convent of, 58. 

Khrystovschina, 253. 

Kiev, 13-15, 23, 24, 30, 41, 45, 56, 62, 
120, 130, 153, 157, 162, 163, 165, 167, 
180, 181, 190, 277, 291; martyrs of, 
16; conversion of, 19, 20; primacy 
removed from, 27 ; conquered, 28 ; its 
see independent, 33 ; adopts Unia, 37 ; 
becomes Orthodox, 66; persecuted, 
joins Rome, 67, 68 ; revived, 80 ; 
bloody struggles, 81 ; Peter Mogila, 
Metropolitan of, 82, 83, 86 ; ceded to 
Russia, 112. 

Kojeozersk, Monastery of, 88. 

Kolisnikov, Svlvan, 279. 

Kolomna, 50,74, 96, 198. 

Kominski, George, 129. 

Kopeck, 255, note. 

Kostroma, 243, 254, 255. 

Koulchinsky, Innocentius, 116. 

Kouritsin, Feodor, 184. 

Koutchouk-Kairnadji, treaty of, 135. 

Koveline,219, 222. 

Kremlin, the, 57, 66, 72. 101, 255. 

Kroutitsk, 63. 

Kullmann, 253, 254, 276. 

L. 

Lakes, the Great, 122, 215, 217, 221, 

236. 
Lapland, 45. 
Larissa, 59. 

Latin Church, the, 3, 25, 96. 
Latin Doctors, 17. 
Latin Language, the 143, 190. 
Lavra, 162, 165. 167. 
Lay Brethren, 165. 
Lay element in Raskol, 215, 220. 
Lay Sisters, 165, 169. 
Lazarus, 189, 190. 
Legends of the Russian Church, 12, 

289 
Lent. 4, 55, 147, 274.. 
Leo IX., Pope, 5. 
Leo X., Pope, 46. 
Leon, Bishop, 180. 
Leontius, St., Metropolitan, 20. 
Leroy-Beaulieu, Anatole, iii, 209 note. 
Lesbos, 60. 

Lindsay, Rev. T. M.. 83 note. 
Lioudi Bojii, the, see Khlysti. 
Lissovsky, Heraclius, 131. 
Lithuania, and Lithuanians, 25, 26, 28, 

32, 37, 44-46, 67, 77, 79, 128, 163, 

183. 



INDEX. 



305 



Little Russia, ( Ihurch of, G8, 97, 107, ill; 

people of, 191,291. 
Lives of die Saints, 120. 
Livonia, 2."), .">."). 122. 

Lord's Supper, the, see Eucharist 

Lot, 262. 

Louis XI. of France, 1 1. 

Loui.s XIV. of France, 128, 

Lovaliv, of Russians, iv., oi ; of Russian 
Church, 164; of Old Believers, 228, 
22!); of Bezpopo vtsi, 238, 289. 

Lubetsch, 22. 

Lupkin, Procopius, 27G. 

Luther, ami Lutherans, 72, 115,188,277, 
290. 

Lyeshi, the, 188. 

M. 

Macarius, Patriarch of Antiooh, 29, 91, 

91 ; Metropolitan, 47, 51. 
Mahometans, 17,48, 184 
Mamai,31. 

Manifesto of Peter the Great, 121. 

Morcellus, l it!. 

Marina, 72, 74. 

Mark of Ephesus, 35. 

Mark of Jerusalem, 17. 

Mark Xylocaraboeus, 59. 

Marriage, 150, 158; of priests, 4, 86, 149, 
150, 160, 161, 170, 171, 176; between 
Orthodox and others, 127 ; among Bez- 
popovtsi, 201, 240-242; among Pas- 
kolniks, 217, 218,296 ; among Khlysti, 
262, 265 ; among Skoptsi, 266. 

Martha and Mary, 189. 

Martyrdom, of Feodor and Ivan at Kiev, 
16; of Philip, 53, 54; of Ilermogencs, 
74, 75. 

Mary, the Virgin, 84, 200, 263, 285. 

Materialism in Kussia,200. 

Matrimony, 86. 

Maxiraus, Metropolitan, 27. 28; the 
Greek, 46, 47, 186. 

Meletius Striga, 83. 

Mennonites, the, 291. 

Messiah, the, 183, 204, 253, 266, 270, 
280. 

Metempsychosis, 279. 

Methodius, 15, 19. 

Methrophanes of Constantinople, 59. 

Metrophancs of Voronege, 12]. 

Metropolitan, the, in Russia, 20, 22, 23, 

25-30, 32-34, 37, 42-46, 53, 54, 56, 58, 

62, 63. 74, 89, 108, 110, 153, 154, 157, 

167, 184, 186 ; in Poland, 33, 37, 44, 45, 

20 



GG, 67, 81, 82,80, 112, 128, 131; of 
Popovtsi, 226-280, 2'J7; of Greek 
Churches, 101. 
Michael 111., Emperor, 3, 15. 
Michael, palace of, 259. 
Michael Romanoff, «e6 Romanoff. 
.Michael, Saint and Metropolitan, 20. 
Milk Drinkers, the, see Molokoni, 
Mill. ■iiium. tlu'. 2D1,266, 280. 
Millerites. the. 206, 
Minime, Cozma, 7(5. 
Minor Clergy, the, 172,178. 
Missions, of the Greek Church, 4, 15,19; 
of the Russian Church, 25,32,45, 116. 
Mitai,30, 
M it an, 118. 

Mogila, Peter, 82, 83, 94, 116, 126. 
Mogilev, 128, 217. 
Moldavia, 82. 

Molokoni, The, 273-281, 288, 291, 294. 
Molotchnaya, the, 274, 279, 281. 
Moltchalniki,the,289. 
Monasteries, 5, 23, 29, 39, 40, 44, 54, 66, 
68, 69, 82, 94, 108, 109, 134, 150, 154, 
162, 260 ; in the East, 9 ; in the West, 
10; Dominican, 68; Department of, 
118-120; number, wealth, regulations, 
119, 120; in Poland, 129; extent, his- 
tory, veneration for, 163-165; re- 
sources, 166, 168, 169; classification 
and inmates, 167, 168. See Alexander 
Nevski ; St. Anthony the Roman ; 
Ascension ; Donskoi ; Iverski ; Kojeo- 
zcrsk ; Novospasski ; Otroch ; Pet- 
cherski; Potcha'ief; Simonov; Solo- 
vetsk; Staritza; Studium; Thera- 
pontoff; Tro'itsa; Volokamsk; Vos- 
kresensk. 
Monastery Tribunal, the, 87. 98, 106. 
Monastic'Life, 9, 11, 119, 120, 161-163, 

165, 166, 169; clergy, see Clergy. 
Monasticism, in the East. 9 ; in the West, 

10; in Russia, 161, 165, 169. 
Monks, 10, 91, 133, 150. 160, 163, 165-167, 
169, 170, 187, 200, 270; of the Bezpo- 
povtsi, 235. 
Montani, the, 251. 
Morality among Mystics, 257. 
Moravians, the, 280. 
Mormons, the, 206. 

Moscow, 27, 29, 31, 32, 48, 49, 55, 56, 65, 
67, 71, 82, 83, 100, 119-122, 125, 128, 
133, 157, 163-165, 167, 169, 232, 254, 
260, 267, 276 ; becomes capital, 28 ; 
its see separates from Kiev, 33 ; Unia 



306 



INDEX. 



repudiated, 36; metropolitan assumes 
title of, 37 ; glory of, 43, 45, 46 ; Ivan 
IV. leaves it, 51; patriarchate of, 61- 
64; captured, recovered, Romanoff 
dynasty established, 74-77; Nikon, 
88, 89; Polish and Russian Churches 
united, 112; the Jndaizers, 43, 183, 
184; Praobrajeuski and Rogojski, 220- 
223, 237. 

Moujik, 149, and note. 

Music in the Russian Church, 144. 

Mussulmans, 69, 135, 217. 

Mutilation, see Skoptsi. 

Mvstical Sects, 252, 259, 260, 263, 269, 
273, 287, 289. 

N. 

Napoleon, 164, 205, 269, 270, 280. 

Natalia, 114. 

Nativity, the, 181. 

Nazareth, 255. 

Nestor, Chronicler, 13, 16, 23, 164. 

Nestor of Rostov, 180, 181. 

Neva, the, 26. 

Nevski, the, 26, 165. 

New England, 206. 

Nicea, Council of, 3. 

Nicholas, a Fanatic, 54. 

Nicholas, Emperor, 131, 135, 224, 228, 
245, 255, 259, 272, 281, 292, 295. 

Nicholas I., Pope, 3, 4. 

Nihilists, the, 239. 

Nijni Novgorod, 76, 87, 122. 

Nikita, a Deacon, 182. 

Nikita, a Dissenter, 114. 

Nikita, St., 13. 

Nikon, 87, 107, 108, 113, 115, 155, 190- 
194, 198, 199, 231 ; is called to Mos- 
cow, 88 ; commences reforms, 89, 90 ; 
patriarch, 91; preaches, 91, 92; re- 
forms pursued, 93, 94; differences be- 
tween Churches, 94-96; opposition to 
him, 97, 98; resigns office, 98,99; at- 
tempts reconciliation, 100; his trial, 
101-103; his purpose, 104-106; his 
death, 109, 110; his reforms and the 
opposition to them, 187, 188. 

Nineveh, 194. 

Noah, 12. 

Nomocanon, the, 20. 

Novgorod, 12, 13, 28, 47, 49, 54, 63, 74, 
80, 89, 90, 99, 110, 121, 165, 182-185, 
282. 

Novices, 165, 169. 

Novodyevitchi Convent, the, 78, 260. 



Novospasski Monastery, the, 88, 164. 

Novozsheny, the, 242. 

Nunneries, 44, 169, 260. 

Nuns, 150, 165, 167, 169, 260; of Bezpo- 

povtsi, 235. 
Nyemolyaki, the, 289. 
Nyemtsi, the, 69. 
Nyphon of Constantinople, 59. 

O. 
Obstchii, the, 280. 
Odessa, 290, 291. 
Oka, the, 42, 253. 
Okroujniki. the, 230. 
Olga, 16-18. 
Olonetz, 122, 243. 
Onega, Lake, 236. 
Onicephorus, Metropolitan, 67. 
Opposition to progress, 192, 194, 196, 

203. See Reforms. 
Opritchnina, and Opritchniki, 52, 53. 
Oskold, 14. 
Osliab, 30. 

Ordination, 150, 182, 198-200, 219, 224. 
Organization, aptitude for, iv., 212, 218, 

219, 221-223; of Popovtsi, 227-229; 

of Bezpopovtsi. 234. 
Origen, 264. 
Orscha, 46. 

Otroch Monastery, the, 54. 
Ouvarov, Count, 245. 

P. 

Pacome of Constantinople, 59. 

Pacome of Lesbos, 60. 

Paganism, 138, 139. 

Paisius, Patriarch, 94. 

Paisius Ligarides, 100. 

Palestine, 94, 96, 164,187. 

Palitsin, Abram, 74. 

Panov, 288. 

Papal Nuncio, the, 70, 117, 129. 

Papal supremacy 1, 2, 6, 11, 24, 26, 34, 
36, 42, 46, 56,* 66, 71, 123, 141, 142. 

Paris, 123. 

Parsees, the, 212. 

Parthenius, Patriarch, 83. 

Passports, 192, 244, 271. 

Parish, parishes, and parishioners, 171, 
172, 174, 177. 

Patriarch, the, 12, 24, 28, 30, 37, 71-73, 
77-80, 92, 93, 100, 105, 107, 109, 111, 
112, 114-118, 124, 125, 135, 142, 153, 
154, 156, 167, 181, 227, 233; see Pa- 
triarchate ; Eastern Patriarchs, 



INDEX. 



307 



Patriarchal Court, the, 78, 106, 118. 
Patriarchate, the Eastern, 58 60, 63, 158 
Patriarchate, the Russian, 61 64, 76, 

77,79, 91, 99, 100, 106, L08, 110, 111), 

124, L68, 156, 156, 198, 
Paul of Aleppo, 91, 92. 

Paul of Kolomna, 90, 198. 

Paul, the Apostle, 182, 276. 

Paul, Tsar, 100, 268, 209, 272. 

Pekin, 110. 

Penance, 85, 8G. 

People, peasants, peasantry, 07, 121 
129, 187 189, 11."-. 1 16, 17<>, 171 176 
17I), 1*5, 187, 188, 190, 192, 100,197 
210, 211. 21 1 210. 22l,21o. 245, 260, 
263, 264, 27:;, 277, 278, 288 2-7, 29a 

Peresvet, 80. 

Perm, 122,218,215, 2SG. 

Peronn, 10, 19. 

Petcherski, the, 23, 24, 29, 82, 1G3-1G5, 
107, 108. 

Peter, Church of St., 34, 07. 

lVtor 111.. 138, 184, 268, 270, 273,285. 

Peter, Metropolitan, 28, 100. 

Peter of Kiev, St., 14. 

Peter, Pretender, 73. 

Peter the Great, 111, 114-118. 120- 
124, 120-128, 132, 134, 135, 137, 155, 
104, 100, 191-193, 195, 203, 251. 259, 
292, 293. 

Petersburg, St., 123, 157, 107, 178,259, 
201, 207. 209, 272. 

Philaret, Metropolitan, 83. 

Philaret Romanoff, see Pomanoff. 

Philip, Dissenter, 204. 

Philip, Saint and Martyr, 28, 52-54, 
104, 154. 

Philipovitch, Daniel. 27)3-256. 

Philipovtsi, the, 204, 238, 

Photius, Metropolitan, 33. 

Photius, Patriarch, 3-0, 14. 

Pictures, the Sacred, 19, 72. 84, 90, 144, 
104, 108, 109, 235, 244, 270, 274, 275, 
278. 

Pilgrims, the, see Stranniki. 

Pimen, 30, 32. 

Pitirim, 99, 107. 

Pliasouni, the, 288. 

Poissevin, Anthony, 55-57, 00. 

Pojarskv, Dimitri, 70. 

Pokloni* 235, 275. 

Poland, Poles, 28, 30, 32, 37, 55. 05, 71- 
70, 82. 91-93, 97, 111, 117, 122. 130, 
131, 103, 282: persecution in. 44. 45, 
06-08, 70, 79-S2, 86, 112, 128-130. 



Polish Church, see Church. 
Polish nationality, 220, 228, 229. 
Polotsk, 81, 128, 181. 

Polotsky, Simon, 108. 

Pomortai, the (Pomorians), 107.221,130. 

Pope, the (of Pome), 2, 5, 10, 21, 8 1. 36, 
-10, 55, 72, 117, 123, 111, 142, 150, 227, 
282. 

Popes (priests) and priesthood, 7, 39, 44, 
57, 85 87, 105, 1 43, 117 160, 160, L61, 
17o, 171, 170, 178, 210, 234, 237, 2-10, 
2 is. 288, 2*9; education of, 172. 173; 
marriage of, 149, 160; number of, 172, 
177; poverty of, 171; vices of, 182, 
183; of Bezpopovtsi, 199, 200, 235; 
of Edinovertsi, 231,233; of Popovtsi, 
198-200, 215, 219, 220, 224, 227, 229, 
297. See Clergy. 

Popovtsi, the, and Popovtsism, 199, 

203, 217, 219, 221, 222, 234, 237, 247 ; 
distribution of, 215; organization of, 
224, 227-231 ; present aspect of, 233. 

Potcha'icf, 107. 

Pougatchev, 134,243, 2G8. 

Pouschkine, 280. 

Poustynia, 162. 

Praobrajenski, 222-224, 237, 239, 241- 

243. 
Praycrless, the, see Xyemolyaki. 
Pretenders: Dimitri, 70-72; Peter, 73. 
Printing, 50. 82, 187. 
Procession, Double, of the Holy Ghost, 

see Ghost. 
Procopovitch, Feofan, 123, 124, 126. 
Prophets, Prophecies, etc.. 193, 194, 202, 

204, 200, 252, 258, 259, 202, 264, 266 
285, 289. 

Protestant churches, 132, 151. 
Protestant clergy. 1 19. 178. 
Protestant countries, 124. 210. 
Protestant preaching. 117. 
Protestant provinces, 211. 
Protestant sects, 127, 147, 273, 270. 
Protestantism, Protestants, 140,140, 147, 

149, 152, 179, 189, 214, 217, 218, 252, 

290, 291. 
Provincial Synods, 158. 
Prussia, 218." 

Pskov, 28, 54, 73, 89, 110, 105, 182, 284. 
Purgatorv. 35. 
Puritans," the, 206, 216, 217. 

Q. 

Quakers, 117,235, 251,280. 
Quarrel, those who, see Kazdorniki. 



308 



INDEX. 



R. 

Radenie, 267. 

Radonegl, 29. 

Ragosa, Michael, Metropolitan, 67. 

Rangoni, Claudio, 70. 

Raphael of Constantinople. 59. 

Raskol, the, 179, 180, 184, 188-190, 
203, 205, 236, 246, 259, 265, 293- 
295; socially and politically, 191-197, 
208 ; danger to, 198 ; division of, 199 ; 
strength of, 210-212 ; distribution of, 
214-217; organization of, 218-220, 
222, 225, 227, 229 ; changes in, 230, 
231, 233 ; sects apart from, 248-251. 

Raskolniks, the, 134, 191, 194, 202, 220, 
221, 223. 270, 274, 275, 282, 283, 295- 
297; numbers of, 208-210; morality of, 
211,212,241; relaxation of, 213, 214; 
children of, 247, 248. 

Rationalistic Sects, 252, 273, 276. 

Ratuzhny, Michael, 290. 

Ravenna, 1. 

Razdornild, the, 230. 

Rebaptism, 79, 127. 

Reconciliation of Dissenters, 203, 229, 
230. • 

Redeemer, the, 289, 290. 

Reform in Russian Church, 26, 32, 44, 49, 
77-79, 87, 90, 91, 104, 111, 133, 178, 
187, 188 ; in parish clergy, 177, 178 ; 
recent. 246-248, 292, 296 ; among the 
Khlysti, 268; by Nikon, 90, 91, 94, 
187,* 188, 192; by Peter the Great, 
117-121, 124, 127, 133, 166, 192-194. 

Regulation, the Spiritual, 125. 

Religious element in Russia, the. iv., 19, 
39, 68, 76, 113, 137-139, 143, 164, 175, 
184, 185, 190, 194, 197, 206, 210, 273, 
283, 286, 287, 293. 

Remarrying, the, see Novozsheny. 

Reorganization of the Church, the, under 
Vassili III., 37, 38 ; under Feodor I., 
63, 64 ; under Peter the Great, 124- 
126. 

Repnine, 130. 

Rhodes, 60. 

Riazan, 33,37, 72, 118, 262. 

Ritualists, Old, 188, 192, 232. 

Rogojski, 222-224, 227-229, 237. 239. 

Romanoff. Alexis, 68, 87-89, 91, 97. 98, 
102, 103, 106-108, 155, 231, 236, 293. 

Romanoff, Anastasia, 48, 70. 

Romanoff Family, the, 70,76. 

Romanoff, Michael, 76-78, 86, 97, 155. 

Romanoff, Philaret, 70, 71, 74,77-80, 96. 



Rome, 1-3, 5, 10, 13, 15, 25, 26, 28, 34, 
36, 37, 42, 63, 117, 139, 140, 227, 232, 
250. 

Rostov, 42, 58, 63, 71, 74, 100, 119, 180. 

Rouble, the, 174 and note, 223. 

Ruric, 14, 19, 56, 68, 130. 

Russians, Old, 192, 196, 211, 225. 

S. 
"Sabaoth,"254, 255, 258. 
Sabbatarians, the, see Soubbotniki. 
Sabbath, the, 4, 282. 
Sacraments, the, 85, 86, 145, 149, 200, 

237, 274-276, 288, 290. 
Saints, lives of the, 120. 
Salomina, 47. 
Saltan, Joseph, Metropolitan of Kiev, 

45, 66, 81. 
Samuelovitch, 112. 
Saratov, 288. 
Sarmatia, 15. 
Saviour, the, 189, 205, 265, 267, 268, 

270, 279. 
Scepticism, 139, 260. 
Schism of a.d. 1054, 1, 4, 6, 24. 
Schools, 20, 41, 43, 68, 80-83, 111, 121, 

133, 134, 159; for white clergy, 170, 

172, 173, 178; for Raskolniks, 213. 

296. 
Scriptures, the, see Bible. 
Secularization of Church property, 44, 

119, 134, 168. 
Selivanov, Andrei, 267-270, 272, 273, 

285, 286. 
Senate, the, 124. 

Sensual excitement, 257-259, 261, 262. 
Seraphim, 284, 288. 
Serfdom, 68, 155, 170, 205, 246, 286, 

287, 292. 
Sergius, Monk, 109. 
Sergius, St., 29, 30, 74. 
Shakers, the, 258, 286. 
Shakouni, the, 261, 262, 288. 
Shorn, the, see Strijenisti. 
Shoueskv, Yassili, Tsar, 73-75. 
Siberia/79, 91, 96, 116, 122, 177, 204, 

205, 214, 215, 246, 268, 269, 271, 292. 
Siemasko, Joseph, 131. 
Sighing Ones, the, see Vozdoukhantsi. 
Sigismund of Poland, 66, 67, 70, 80, 81. 
Simeon of Constantinople, 59. 
Simon Ivanovitch, 82. 
Simon, Metropolitan, 44. 
Simonov Monastery, the, 163. 
Sinai, 57, 101. 



INDEX. 



309 



Skeet, tee Hermitages, 

Skoptsi, the, 258, 264 278, 283, 285, 289, 
294; 

Slavs, Slavonic, 1-13, 173, 21 1 T 249 : con- 
version Of, 15, 19- race, 139, 1 \0\ 
figures, 194, note; cm [tiros, 227. 

Slovenie, the, G'j. 

Smolensk, 268. 

Sobiesky, John, 112, 128, 

Sojigateli, the, 204. 

Solomon, 188, 262, 275. 

Solovetsk, Convent of, 74, 88, 107, 163- 
1G5, 286, 282. 

Soltyk of Cracow, 130. 

Sophia, Church of St., 6, 

Sophia, Cathedral of St., at Kiev, 81. 

s.-phia. Regent, 1 1 1, ill. 

Sophia, Tsarina, 42, 45. 

Sorbonne, the, 128. 
Soubbotniki, the, 282, 294. 

Souslov, Ivan Timol'cicvitch, 254, 255, 

258, 285. 

Souzdal, 71, 181, 209. 

Spain, 2, 3. 

Spirit, the Holy, 84, 190, 253, 271-273, 
285. 

Spiritual College, the, 125; Regulation, 
the, 125. 

Stanislas of Poland, 129, 130. 

Staradoub, 217, 

Staritza, Monastery of, 71. 

Staroc, 256. 

Staroobriadtsi, the, 188. 

Staroveri, the, see OKI Ritualists. 

Stavropigia, 102, 1G7. 

Stephen, St., 32. 

Stranglers, the, see Tioukalstchiki. 

Stranniki, the, 195, 238, 242-240, 2G5, 
294. 

Strannopreeimfsi, the, see Stranniki. 

Streltsi, the, 113, 114. 

Strigolniki, the, 181-183. 

Strijenisti, the, 284. 

Studium Monastery, the, 23. 

Stundists, the, 290," 291. 

Sundays, 127,282, 288. 

Sviatoslav, 1G. 

Sweden, Swedes. 2G, G6, 73, 74, 76, 90, 
163, 164. 

Sylvester, Monk, 49, 51. 

Sylvester of Mogilev, 128. 

Synod, General, 85; Most Holy: estab- 
lishment of, 125, 126; receives back 
theUnia, 131, 132; is intolerant, 132; 
character of, 135 ; not infallible, 142 ; 



may cancel priests' vows, 150: final 
form of Church government, loo, loo-, 
logical form of, 156; composition, du- 
ties, etc, of, 157-159; control by, ICG, 
167, 171; protO -popes, 172; con- 
demned by Bezpopovtsi, 203.; reports 
of, 209 ; conciliates Raskolniks, 230; 
Edinovertai, 231 ; Provincial Synods, 



158. 



T 



Taciturn, the, see Moltchalniki. 

Tambov, 288. 

Tamerlane, 82. 

Tatars, invasions of, 25, 153, 103, 161; 
protect the Church, 26, 27, 105,154; 
set aside the dynasty of Ivan Kalita, 
2!'; Dimitri Donskol defeats the, 30, 
31; under Mamai and Toktamuish, 
31 ; under Tamerlane, 32, 33; libera- 
tion from the, 39; effect of their rule, 
40, 41; Ivan III. defeats the, 42, 43; 
GodounOv defeats the, 65,70; Cross 
and Crescent, 96; mosques of the, 132. 

Tchislenniki, the, 288. 

Teutonic Knights, the, 25. 

Theophanes of Jerusalem, 77, 78, 80, 81. 

Theoptus of Constantinople, 60. 

Therapon toff Monastery, the, 104. 

Thessalonica, 33. 

Thomas a Becket, 88. 

Thursday, Holy, 200. 

Tiber, the, 13. 

Timothy. 178. 

Tioukalstchiki, the, 204. 

Tirkhanov, Ivan, 290. 

Tobacco, 116, 191,235. 

Toktamuish, 31, 32. 

Toleration : Peter the Great's manifesto, 
121; under Peter III., 133; under 
Catherine II., 134; general, 238, 296. 

Touschina, 74. 

Transubstantiation, 85, 146. 

Tribunal, see Court. 

Trinity, the, 84; Monastery of the, see 
Troi'tsa. 

Troi'tsa, Monastery of the, 79, 106 ; 
foundation and growth of the, 29,30; 
patriotism of the, 74-76; placed un- 
der the patriarch, 78; protects Peter 
the Great, 114; wealth of the, 119; 
size of the, 163: veneration for the, 
164, 1G5, 168, called Lavra, 167; holy 
picture in the, 289; Town of, 288. 

Trophimovitch, Isaiah, 82. 



310 



INDEX. 



Tsar, 269, 280, 284; title of, 48, 239; 

prayers for, 69, 236, 239. 
Turkey, Turks, 34, 65, 82, 83, 112, 139, 

2 18," 227, 228,277. 
Tvaritenev, Dimitri, 277. 
Tver, 31, 73. 

U. 

Ukraine, the, 86, 97, 112, 134, 217. 

Unclean food, 74, 191, 235. 

Unction of the sick, 86. 

Unia, the, 37, 70, 111, 131, 132, 190, 232. 

Uniate Believers, see Edinovertsi. 

Uniates, the, 68, 80, 81, 123, 128, 129, 
131, 132, 167. 

Union, act of, 35, 42 ; of Greek and 
Latin Churches, 56, 117, 123; of Po- 
lish and Roman Churches, 67 ; of 
English and Russian Churches, 124, 
126 ; of Uniate and Orthodox Church- 
es, 131, 132. 

Unity of the Godhead, 268, 277, 283. 

Ural" Mountains, the, 32, 204, 213-215, 
217; River, 215. 

Uspenski, see Assumption. 



Valdai, Lake of, 89, 104. 

Varagians, the, 14, 16. 

Varvara, St., 287. 

Vassian of Kolomna. 50. 

Vassian of Rostov, 42, 43. 

Vassili II., 32. 

Vassili in., 33, 34, 36. 

Vassili IV., 45-47, 94, 186. 

Vassili Shouesky, 73-75. 

Vassiliev, Ouliana, 255. 

Veronica, St., 290. 

Vetka, 217. 

Vienna, 117. 

Vishnu, 254. 

Vitoft of Poland, 32, 33. 

Vladimir, City of, 27, 29, 61, 62, 165. 

Vladimir II., Monomachus, 24. 

Vladimir, Province of, 254. 

Vladimir the Great, 16-20, 22, 78, 105. 

Vladislas IV., of Poland, 75, 76, 81, 82, 



Vlas, St., 138. 

Volga, the, 26, 109, 122, 134, 215, 253. 

Volhymnia, 167. 

Volkov, the, 182. 

Vologda, 215. 

Volokamsk, Monasterv of, 184. 

Voltaire, 134, 230, 260". 

Voronege, 121. 

Voskresenski Monasterv, the, 101, 109, 

164. 
Vozdoukhantsi, the, 290. 
Vyg, the, 127, 215, 221, 236, 239. 
Vygoretsk, Convent of, 215, 221, 236. 

W. 

Walachia, 60, 101. 

Wanderers, the, see Stranniki, 

Warsaw, Diet of, 82, 129, 130. 

West and East, see East. 

Whip, 253. 

White Clergy, the, see Clergy. 

White Doves, the, see Skoptsi. 

White Lake, the, 104. 

White Russia, 129, 131, 206. 

White Sea, the, 88, 107, 122, 164, 215, 

221, 236, 282. 
White Tsar, the, 193, 269, 280. 
Wilna, 67. 

Wives of priests, 176. 
Wolsey, 88. 
Word, the, see Bible. 

Y. 

Yanovsky, Feodocei, 126. 

Yaroslav, City of, 109. 

Yaroslav, Province of, 243. 

Yaroslav the Great, 22-24. 

Yavorskv, Stephen, 118, 120, 122-124, 

126. 
Yawners, the, 200. 

Z. 

Zachariah, Heretic, 183. 

Zalusski of Kiev, 130. 

Zishka, Leo, 128. 

Ziuzin, Nikita, 100. 

Zlotooust, 288. 

Zosimos, Metropolitan, 43, 44, 134. 



THE END. 



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12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

M'CARTHY'S HISTORY OF THE FOUR GEORGES. A History 
of the Four Georges. By Justin M'Cartiiy, M.P. Vol.1. 12mo, 
Cloth, $1 25. (To be completed in Four Volumes.) 



10 Valuable Works for Public and Private Libraries. 

ABBOTT'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. The 

French Revolution of 1789, as viewed in the Light of Republican 
Institutions. By John S. C. Abbott. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, 
$5 00 ; Sheep, $5 50 ; Half Calf, $7 25. 

ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON. The History of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
By John S. C. Abbott. Maps, Illustrations, and Portraits. 2 
vols., 8vo, Cloth, $10 00; Sheep, $11 00; Half Calf, $U 50. 

ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. Napoleon at St. 
Helena; or, Anecdotes and Conversations of the Emperor during 
the Years of his Captivity. Collected from the Memorials of Las 
Casas, O'Mcara, Montholon, Antommarchi, and others. By John 
S. C. Abbott. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00 ; Sheep, $5 50 ; .Half 
Calf, $7 25. 

ABBOTTS FREDERICK THE GREAT. The History of Frederick 
the Second, called Frederick the Great. By JoriN S. C. Abbott. 
Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00 ; Half Calf, $7 25. 

TROLLOPE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. An Autobiography. By An- 
thony Trollope. With a Portrait. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25. 

TROLLOPE'S CICERO. Life of Cicero. By Anthony Trollope. 
2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 00. 

FOLK-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE. By the Rev. T. F. Thiselton 
Dyer, M.A., Oxon. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50. 

WATSON'S MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS. Marcus Aureli- 
us Antoninus. By Paul Barron Watson. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 
$2 50. 

THOMSON'S THE GREAT ARGUMENT. The Great Argument ; 
or, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. By W. H. Thomson, M.A., 
M.D. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. 

HUDSON'S HISTORY OF JOURNALISM. Journalism in the United 
States, from 1690 to 1872. By Frederic Hudson. 8vo, Cloth, 
$5 00; Half Calf, $7 25. 

SHELDON'S HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. History 
of Christian Doctrine. By H. C. Sheldon, Professor of Church His- 
tory in Boston University. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $3 50 per set. 

DEXTER'S CONGREGATIONALISM. The Congregationalism of 
the Last Three Hundred Years, as Seen in its Literature : with 
Special Reference to certain Recondite, Neglected, or Disputed 
Passages. With a Bibliographical Appendix. By H. M. Dexter. 
Large 8vo, Cloth, $6 00. 






